


Different Shape of Being

by perryvic, Zaganthi (Caffiends)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Smallville
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Crossover, Drama, Established Relationship, Futurefic, M/M, Multi, Romance, hurt-comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-04-12
Updated: 2005-04-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 09:50:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 62,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/355215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perryvic/pseuds/perryvic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caffiends/pseuds/Zaganthi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce and Lex had been screwed up for years, but they'd always had each other no matter how difficult things were. Could Clark Kent be the one to either fix them both or tear them apart? Or will the world be destroyed before any of them can see sense?</p><p>Part of Clexfest 11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Different Shape of Being

There was a convenience in what they were doing. No names, no long drawn out discussing, no feigning honest interest. A couple of shared drinks, some general comments about day to day things, and the best part -- a confirmation that one of them wasn't from around there.

He probably had a wife and kids at home, but he was hung like a horse and had gorgeous eyes, so Lex didn't care. It was a hot body, an interested look. There was a beauty in a one night stand, and that beauty coalesced into the moment when his bare back hit the mattress, bowled over by fierce kisses.

Whoever he was, with that dark mussed hair and body that looked like he should be some professional model, he seemed as hungry as Lex was for body contact. That had to be impossible from the way he looked. It was nearly impossible to conceive that his one night stand would be lacking in willing partners, but the other man latched on to him as if he was dying for that kiss.

Lex was willing to put down the stray pretty ones he found to possible assholishness, shyness, or not wanting to lead a double life. The straightest guy at home, running riot when playing away and not counting it a betrayal to anyone except themselves.

In the end, it didn't matter. It was just a relief for his body and mind, sweet contact for a few stray hours and if he was a secret keeper, all the better. Lex gave a rough laugh, arms around the sex god he'd lucked out on finding, and pulled him down for more kisses when he tried to move away somewhat.

"Eager?" the man asked with a gleam in his emerald eyes. "Don't tell me you haven't done better, or been done by better?"

It was nearly a laugh in the question, but a hint of serious inquiry.

"I can't say yet," Lex grinned back up at those sharp eyes. "But it's been a while. You know how it is." He didn't stop moving, pressing his dick up against the other man's, hands stroking over muscled shoulders.

"Mmm. Practically forever from the feel of you." He half lidded his eyes a moment.

"So do you. There's no reason for a gorgeous man like you to... have such _want_." Lex formed the word carefully, leaning up to nip the man's earlobe. Maybe that would jump-start him out of contemplation. Lex liked hotel rooms for their anonymity, and their dim lighting; the less time someone spent looking at his face, the better. 

His lay laughed as if Lex had said something funny. "You'd be amazed at how few people would think that." 

"Then wherever you come from is a really fucked up place." Lex trailed sensual kisses across the man's face. He seemed a little distracted. "Speaking of fucking..." 

The man's attention snapped back. "Yeah... Uh. Yeah, how er... which way?" Maybe there was some subtle sign that he missed saying, 'Bend over, I'm a top,' or, 'Fuck me, I like to take it up the ass'. Not that he minded either way. 

"You switch hit?" Lex let a hand wander between them, pinching the left nipple of the man above him. That was sort of interesting to note, even if Lex's switching was a different type. Sometimes he liked to feel overpowered in a situation where he was laughably far from it. "I usually catch." 

The man arched down against Lex, sensation tingling from that spot in a warm glow. "Mm. I... do whatever is best for the person I'm with," he murmured. "You want force you can have it, you want slow... or... anything... yeah. I do requests better than a DJ." 

That got another quiet, compressed laugh. "How about 'hard', big guy." 

His eyes gleamed. "Oh I can do hard, if that's what you want." He was a little too polite for the one night stand to be his habitual mode of contact, Lex could tell. "Is that what you want? Hard, fast? A fuck into oblivion?" 

Just the way the guy said it made Lex harder, made him want to fuck the guy's stomach. "Yeah. I've got condoms..." And his earpiece communicator was in the car. Risky, sure, but he didn't want any of that overheard. Not even by accident. 

His mystery lover gave Lex a look that smoldered. "Very convenient," he replied and with that launched into a more assured assault of passionate kisses on his smooth skin. 

That was nice. Less of the talking shit, and more kissing, more action. Since Mr. Dark and Handsome was taking control, Lex closed his eyes and as easily as that, let himself slide into a maelstrom of reacting and goading the other man on. He wanted to be fucked, hard and fast and good. 

From the way the man's hot lips latched on to him, and tirelessly explored his skin, things looked promising. He seemed to know exactly where his skin was most sensitive; including areas that Lex himself had not been aware of for all his experience. He had no idea that when the other man mouthed and sucked at the crease of his arm opposite his elbow that it would have quite such an effect. 

He was going to have to try that on someone else some time. Lex tucked it away, like he tucked everything away, and kept right on enjoying the way that the man's hair felt in his fingers. So like, like... "Oh, fuck. Yeah. Suck me, suck me please..." 

Soft and fine on his fingers but tangling strong around them as he stroked and clenched his hands. His lover gave no immediate sign that he was listening, absorbed in his exploration of his lean muscled body, but he did start meandering down that way in an unhurried trip across the realms of his body. His nipples were licked and then teeth tugged at them with a degree of careful force even as his hands were busy stroking down the inside of Lex's hard muscled thigh, scrupulously avoiding touching where he wanted to be touched, at least for now. 

Tease. Lex only had a couple of hours, and he'd stumbled across a _tease_. "Oh, god." He arched up against the guy's mouth, and tightened his fingers a little, legs spreading as an invitation to the man. "Yeah..." 

It was an eternity later before the man stopped stroking around the hard muscles and moved in. An unbearable wait before the heat of his mouth settled over the head of Lex's cock and his tongue delved everywhere without mercy. 

Worth the wait to feel tongue squirming against his piss-slit, slipping around the underside of his cockhead, sensation sharp on either side of the line of his circumcision scar. It made Lex choke on a gasp when the guy _slurped_ at him, and Lex knew it wasn't going to take long. Particularly as somewhere, somehow the man sucking on his cock with such lavish attention had found the lube and was sliding slick fingers down his crack and then pushing eagerly into him. 

Some days, it was great to just be slutty and enjoy it. Lex spread his legs, canted his hips up automatically to make it easier for thick slick fingers to pry him open and push into him. It felt like heaven, felt as close as he'd ever get to letting go. Just body to body and the slap of skin on skin in an overheated room. 

From there it was short passionate transition to something a lot larger pushing at him and a very solid body over him, still reaching for kisses as he pressed in. 

That was the best way. He was going to really feel it, face to face with the other guy, and he'd have a mouth to yell his passion into, lips to taste. A full on sensory experience. Sex in the raw, almost desperate in its intensity to purge it from his blood. 

It involved a little bit of flexibility, acrobatics to get into a comfortable position with him, but that was really not even an issue considering his fitness and training. More of a warming up exercise. His one night stand had a cock that filled him, stretched him until every part of him was impaled and waiting for movement. 

His lover could have let loose, but he didn't. The wild ride began with a slow gentle movement, gathering in pace as Lex was kissed and nuzzled, encouragement to drive him forward into something more. 

Slow, but promising to build with a burning sense of being filled. The other man was solid muscle, and Lex's legs up on his shoulders weren't an impediment for either of them since Lex was comfortably flexible. He could suck himself off with a lot of work, so being bent in half while his ass was slowly being hammered wasn't even a faint imposition. It felt good to be stretched like that, both ways, inside and out, his hard cock bobbing between them. 

His lover of the night was true to his word; he did seem intent on fucking him to oblivion and beyond. The pace increased even as thrust and penetration consumed him. He seemed to know exactly what he was doing. He seemed to know the exact angle to strike Lex's prostate and send him into orbit as he kissed him. 

It should've been over-stimulation -- too much thrusting, too much _right_ on his prostate, too much strain on his back, but. But Lex wasn't most men, and for Lex it was fantastic to feel things spin out of control, his stroking hands goading the man on until he slipped fingers between their bodies to stroke himself off. Almost there already, just from the cock that was sliding in and out of his ass. 

The guy let himself go just a little, an impossible amount of stamina in his movement, but also a need that had to be fulfilled. He thrust hard and fast and arched back with a cry and held back from his release, waiting for his lover to reach his own climax. Just a few last tugs of Lex's dick, his fist tight and moving with those few jerky movements the guy gave him. Lex panted, strained, reached for it... hit it. 

"Oh, fuck, fuh... oh, yeah. Uhn." Not loud, but muted, and he went tight around the guy's cock, squeezing him over the edge of his restraint. 

That was all his lover needed to arch back, with a few last thrusts against the tightness of that clench and to come with a vocal wordless incoherent sound, before allowing himself to sprawl heavily over Lex in a daze of wonder. 

Lex never lost consciousness. He let himself fall into a lazy lull of non-motion, catching his breath with relative ease as he shifted his legs so that he wasn't cracked in half anymore. 

The other man was very warm lying on him, though not damped with sweat so as he would notice. The strange thing was the way he moved to curl his arms and his body around him in an embrace. It was then his muscles really relaxed and the tension seemed to flow from the man. 

Cuddler. 

It was kind of cute, and Lex wouldn't begrudge the guy. He seemed a nice enough guy... Decent. Gorgeous, and he'd given Lex a wild ride. He could rest like that for a little while... 

He did feel kind of comfortable like that. All too often the pretty packages were nothing but window dressing. He'd lucked out with his chance meeting in that gay club, although if he hadn't had the habit of looking into shadows he might have missed him. 

It had been like the guy hadn't been sure that he even wanted to be there, but the moment they had locked eyes, the attraction had been thick and musky and altogether not promising anything that hadn't been satisfied. Lex stretched a little, then folded his hands loosely at the back of the man's neck, eyes slitted closed. He'd wait for the man's breathing to even out, and then he'd slip out. Write a note, thank him, and move on. It was only a shame that he'd never see the guy again. 

The man nuzzled against his neck and closed his eyes, resting his head on Lex's chest, listening to his slow strong heartbeat. Then he closed his eyes, drifting contentedly. 

Lex didn't know, didn't expect, didn't think to expect. His heartbeat picked up a little as he held tight for a moment. Then after a while he shifted faintly, trying to gentle himself away. Seeing if it was even possible. 

He couldn't go incommunicado for long. 

There was a slight sleepy sound but the other man didn't clutch at him, or wake to delay him with inconvenient questions. 

"Mm." He couldn't help but put fingers into thick dark hair as he slipped carefully to his feet, settling a pillow into the man's arms in a mimicry of his shape. 

His lover seemed to accept that substitution and he was abnormally adept at moving stealthily. Too many years of experience came to his aid as he made his escape. 

It only took Lex a minute to open one of the drawers and pen out a quick, scratchy note. 'Sorry I had to go so soon. Maybe we'll see each other again. Thanks.' Another half a minute to dress, and a few seconds to flip sheets up over the man. 

Then Lex left, opening the door with one last backwards glance, hoping to get one last look at the godlike man he'd just been with. 

He wasn't expecting to see him propped up on one elbow watching him leave. The look in his green eyes, even in the dim light was full of a very old pain, but he didn't say a word to call him back. Just turned and lay back down, looking away from the door, staring into the darkness as if all hope had fled. 

Lex closed the door behind him, and stood out in the hallway for a moment before he ran his hands back through his wavy red hair. Fuck. He never wanted to hurt anyone. He just... 

Had to get going. It was going to be a long night. 

* * *

Alfred was not having a good day... night... early morning. As ever he had the preferred cup of coffee waiting in the Bat Cave, along with two of the pastries that Master Lex favored as he had a considerably sweeter tooth than Master Bruce after his patrols -- a source of constant bickering between the two.

That the pair of them could bicker about practically everything didn't help. Lex could flare into anger like the blazing heart of a star whereas Bruce could muster an icy rage that challenged absolute zero. The temperature had definitely dropped a few degrees tonight which was why he was up to perform the debriefing and necessary care and attention instead of Master Bruce.

Master Bruce, simply put, was in a right royal snit. Alfred felt he was eminently qualified to judge this fact having been on the receiving end of most of it since Lex had committed the cardinal sin of dropping off the radar for two hours.

Bruce had been furious and all the more frustrated because he couldn't get up from the Chair to move to do anything about it, or even 'teach him a lesson' as they had always dealt with this problems in the past.

That was always the source of his fury. Alfred was sure that Master Bruce was still awake in the manor, feigning sleep but waiting for the fractional rumble of the Batmobile's engine that was a roar to Alfred's ears. It coasted to a perfect stop, right on the park pad, and the roof peeled back.

Alfred never could be sure what was going to come out of the Batmobile. A corpse, perhaps, since it had an auto return command. Or a man who was nigh on a corpse. Or a fit and healthy, but angry man. It was a wonder his ulcer wasn't worse than it was already.

Tonight, when Lex got out of the car and reached up to take off his mask, it seemed he was tired and bruised and that was all.

"Welcome home Master Lex," Alfred greeted him with his usual aplomb. "Will we be taxing the medical reserves of Gotham city tonight or will supplies of sutures and Type AB Negative be safe for one night?"

Lex smiled a little crookedly, appreciating Alfred's off kilter sense of humor. He also paused to crack his neck. "You can let them know that they're safe and sound for the night. And so is Gotham. Except for a rough patch, all was quiet."

"Too quiet I believe in some respects," Alfred commented shrewdly. "Some light refreshments Master Lex? There may be more danger yet to face this night."

"He's angry at me again, isn't he?" Fire and ice, red hair and coal black, Lex had once mused to Alfred, and he wasn't sure who was containing whom. Lex's hands hovered over the sweet pastry once he'd peeled his glove off, then he stopped and picked up the coffee cup instead. "Thank you, Alfred."

"My pleasure Master Lex. And in answer to your question; does the proverbial bear defecate in the woods?" Alfred helped him with the body armor with the ease of years of long practice.

Particularly releasing the nearly invisible catches while Lex drank his coffee down. He preferred to use the light, body-suit like body armor that Bruce had favored, than what he'd had in his first... incarnation.

Lex spared a glance to his Nighthawk costume in its glass tomb, the browns and blacks familiar and unfamiliar to him all at the same time. It had been too damned long, and that wasn't who he was anymore.

"Sounds like you had a rougher night than I did."

"He was rather vocal in his displeasure about your commlink being turned off for a portion of the evening. The air was not just blue, Master Lex, we had a whole Technicolor rainbow in here," Alfred informed him dryly looking at his skin critically. "Let me get the salve and antiseptic for those bruises and the cut on your back."

"I'm cut?" Lex twisted, trying to look down the line of his own spine ineffectively. "Didn't even notice. Fucking gang bangers." There was notably no commentary on why the commlink was turned off.

Lex never did give a reason why, not to Alfred, when it happened.

Alfred wisely chose to stay out of it. Although it was pretty much guaranteed he knew all about it, just like he always had about the two of his wards together. "It is little more than a scratch but even the smallest scratch can fester with contamination with filth. Master Bruce refused to pilot the NightHawk interface after that. He believed if you were so confident to go unmonitored then you could fend for yourself."

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed tightly. "I guess I'll be apologizing once you've touched up that cut." He didn't have qualms about standing there nearly naked as Alfred took care of the cut that he couldn't even see.

Alfred after all had been taking care of them both since they were both children. He had seen them naked and worse through their teen years and nothing seemed to shake his dignified calm.

"You are entitled to a little privacy, Alexander," Alfred murmured as he concentrated. "But Bruce does forget this. His depression gets the better of him sometimes."

More often than not it seemed after the doctors had declared his spinal injury inoperable.

"I know." Lex knew and yet... and yet. He still forgot, still struggled to walk the line between living his own life and living Bruce's for him. For _them_. He was Batman, had been Batman for years now, but he was never trusted to do it on his own -- even if he'd been trusted alone as Nighthawk -- and Bruce always considered him a stand in for a need. A stand in for what had to be done. 

It chafed at Lex. And it chafed at Lex that Bruce was so cold so often, and so much of what they had been was lost at the same time as Bruce's mobility. "We have to be out early tomorrow, don't we?"

"Before noon, I am afraid, Master Lex," Alfred replied as he swabbed along the cut and found the appropriate dressing. "WayneLuthorCorp board meeting at noon. Both of you are required to attend as I am informed that your ability to sign on the dotted line is highly sought after."

"Wonderful." Lex sighed that, rocking on his heels for a moment. "Done yet? You should sleep in tomorrow. I'll handle breakfast."

"My impersonation of a nurse is complete," Alfred replied stepping back. "And you will not be making breakfast tomorrow. You will be sleeping in as late as you can."

Sure. Sleeping late. As well as a man could when he was well and firmly in the doghouse. Or sleeping on the sofa. "We'll see about that, Alfred. I'll see you." Since it was already tomorrow, and the morning, Lex could only move to walk up the long, winding stairs.

Bruce did not believe in hiding his displeasure. He never had and since the accident it was increasingly difficult to handle him. True, for someone like him who had turned movement into an art, to be bereft of movement and sensation in his legs was a tragedy along the lines of Michelangelo losing his sight, or any of the great musicians losing the use of their hands. It was obvious to the members of their select household that for all his denials, Bruce hadn't come to terms with the inoperable state of his injury and Lex and Alfred were the only ones on whom he could vent the total of his frustration. Which he vented frequently.

Lex supposed that sometimes he didn't help the situation, but Bruce was hard to handle. There were no tangible rules, and god help you if you expected there to be any predictability to how he'd react to any issue he was faced with twice.

So it was with tension in his body that Lex cracked the bedroom door.

Bruce was lying in their big double bed, with no light on, though the light from behind him Lex picked up the glitter of a dark eye watching him.

"You're late."

There wasn't any point in denying; Lex closed the door behind him, and stripped out of his shorts while walking 'blind' towards the bed. "Just a little. It was a quiet night."

"Exceptionally quiet," Bruce replied in a dangerous tone of voice. "There was a whole two hours I could have heard a pin drop."

He couldn't quite answer that as he moved to slid into bed. If Bruce would let Lex, he'd curl up behind him, close and comfortable since that was the most Bruce _let_ Lex do. "I took a break."

He didn't get thrown out of bed which was a small mercy. Bruce allowed him to move close in a tense silence.

"Was he good?"

Of course Bruce knew. It was like a knife of guilt being stuck right between his eyes. Maybe it was time to stop. The man had looked so hurt, and Bruce... Lex laid a strong hand on Bruce's arm, then inched himself closer. "He wasn't you."

"That's irrelevant," Bruce replied finally turning towards him. "I wanted to know if he was any good, because you had better be hearing the fucking angels singing up in heaven to have reason to turn off your commlink!"

Oh, Jesus. He wasn't prepared for _that_ argument. "What am I supposed to say? It's a hearing aid? I..."

"You don't have to wear it, just leave it on. You picked up a guy in a club," Bruce began. "He could have been anyone, he could have... do you even know his name? Did that thought even enter your head?"

"No..." Fucking stupid. He was fucking stupid -- the guy could've been bait if anyone ever figured out who was he was. But it didn't strike him, no, not until Bruce mentioned it, which left Lex wincing inside as he closed his eyes. All he wanted, needed was the warmth and heat of passion that Bruce denied him since his incapacity. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

"You were thinking with your dick," Bruce replied harshly. "Lex, on a prosaic security level do I have to remind you that you are a billionaire? Kidnappings, ransoms, let alone the off chance that one of the Batman's adversaries might have tumbled to a connection. God dammit, I hope he was worth it, your fuck of the night."

"It..." Fuck. He couldn't _explain_ it, couldn't expect Bruce to calm down. Logic _and_ emotion had two strikes against what Lex had done. It wasn't fair that he'd only been prepared to face the emotional side and Bruce had come at him with logic first.

Of course, Bruce had always tossed up logic before emotion. "He wasn't. Look, I... I won't do it again."

"Don't. Next time you pick up someone leave the commlink open so we can make a judgment one whether the screaming and yelling is cause for alarm." Bruce's tense muscles relaxed just a little though his voice held layers of subtle rebuke.

Sleeping around was something you were supposed to get away with. The order to have it monitored... was one that Bruce knew would act as a deterrent. "Sure." Lex shifted closer, sliding his arms around Bruce. At least in the pitch darkness, Bruce couldn't see that his face had turned as red as his hair.

But from the way Bruce's hand touched his cheek showed that not even that could be hidden from him forever, as the increase in heat was something that he just seemed to register. Bruce had a mind like that. Cause and effect, event and consequence compressing together in one instant. That was his genius. Lex's on the other hand was something different.

Something more intuitive, and oddly more mechanical. Bruce understood electronics, but Lex understood mechanics, could feel all the pieces come together at once. Emotion and fire and intuition to logic and ice and cause and effect. When they worked together, the world lay open before them for the taking. When they were at odds...

Lex sighed, settling close to his almost-brother. 

It was a wonder that they hadn't killed each other yet. "Night."

"Sleep well," Bruce replied and that was the end of it. He turned into Lex's arms and settled there.

Lex guessed that Bruce tossed that out... just to spite him. He sighed again, eyes still closed. There were fingers on his face, guilt in his heart, a cut on his back, and his ass hurt.

Not a lot to show for his night.

* * *

Clark stared morosely into his coffee, his article stalled mid-sentence. Even the morning's unobtrusive rescues hadn't cheered his mood. There was a reason why his parents had brought him up to think one night stands were wrong. If most women felt the way he did when he heard his lover get up and sneak off then he could understand their stand against it, even though he was old enough to make his own decisions.

He didn't understand why it had happened last night. It had been everything he had ever hoped for. An instant rapport, a fading of the barrier that seemed to exist between him and the rest of the world and lying in his arms had been an intoxicating bliss in itself.

And then the guy -- he didn't even know his name -- had left as if it had been nothing.

He had to be doing something wrong, or worse there had to be something wrong with him. Some freaky alien thing, or some basic human thing that he wasn't fulfilling in sex because... he just didn't know what it was. Not for the first time, he mentally likened his experience to trying to join a game where everyone else already knew the rules so nobody ever had to explain them. It was a metaphor that filled in a lot of gaps for him when dealing with love and relationships in particular.

Maybe there was something built into humans that just made things connect; he'd certainly felt like he had been missing something in every sexual experience he had. Not that it hadn't been physically good, and not that he and his partners hadn't enjoyed it. Somehow things just never went further, and each time it was like an unclenching of relief because he knew he had been trying too hard to be someone he wasn't to make it happen. But last night had been different. He felt, finally, finally, that sense of togetherness and he had been convinced that there was a reason that he had succumbed to his atypical desire and gone off with a stranger. That somehow the other man would turn around and somehow that magic would be shared and be real and then...

And then he'd left him. Like everyone else.

Maybe he was just really bad at sex or something.

Except, the guy had left him a note. Mind you, without a name on it.

Which made the other possibility that it was a normal action for humans... in which case Clark also didn't understand. How could you _do_ that even when things had been so good and just... leave a 'see you around' note?

Maybe he should've learned the guy's name.

The upshot was that he was having a bad case of what his Mom called the 'lonelies'. Rationally he knew it was stupid, and that all he had ever really known was humankind, but every now and then he was made acutely aware of how different he was. About how perhaps he had no right to be here after all and that any chance of having something that resembled a normal life was so beyond him that he should just suck it up an resign himself to being alone and doing the things Superman could do.

Superman could do a lot, after all. More than Clark Kent, but... but Clark served a purpose, too. He guessed. It would help if any one of the various personas he used actually felt real.

What Clark really needed was a distraction, and seeing Lois wander over towards their shared desk was a message that he'd be getting that distraction.

"Guess where Perry has given us tickets to?" Lois said flourishing the two card pieces in her hand with a hyped look to her expression that meant it had to be work related.

"Disneyworld?" He was hard pushed to muster up his requisite goofiness. Sometimes he felt like it was too much trouble but Lois might actually start looking at him a bit more keenly if she couldn't feel superior to him.

"Very funny, Smallville. The Tech trade show, which you might recall is being held here this year? Big name people, speeches, things that 'whirr', all that. Perry told me that there's rumor about a big WayneLuthor Enterprises launch."

"Oh yeah? The Gotham industrialists right?" Clark swung around to look up at her. "I'm guessing that we're not just going in after normal gossip then?"

"Big time gossip," Lois grinned, as she perched on the edge of his desk. A press pass was handed to him. "Now, we need to do some preliminary research. How basic is your base knowledge on the business and the people behind it?"

"I'm pretty up on any Metropolis based people. I know some of the basic bio of Wayne and Luthor -- the stuff that their publicity pump out though. Haven't really dealt with much Gotham stuff."

Except Batman, but that had been a few years ago and, boy he'd felt like a complete amateur there in lurid spandex faced with the Dark Knight of Gotham.

"Okay, then you're up on the blah blah, shooting, both sets of parents dead blah blah, like brothers stuff." Lois seemed satisfied with that as she leaned past Clark to bring up his e-mail program. "Jimmy sent pictures. Rumor has it that they're the type to stroll the floors, and we're damn well not going to miss them. It's not like you _can_ miss Wayne."

"And they're notoriously difficult to get an interview with," Clark shrugged, leaning to one side.

"Yeah, well, maybe you'll get lucky. Or I'll get lucky. Clark, you know you can't just _give up_ because some guy doesn't like to talk to the press. Hello, that's why we have jobs investigating." She helped herself to digging through his inbox, and then opened the three attachments in the viewer -- a facial shot of Wayne, first. "You have to remember that he's in a wheelchair, and that his brother, er, shit, Luthor's usually there. Apparently some guy from the Inquisitor started talking to him like Wayne was deaf or something, and Wayne _really_ ran over his feet. There's some sort of motor or battery in that chair."

"They run a corporation that specializes in cutting edge technology. I somehow doubt he would have second best in his wheel chair," Clark replied as he looked at picture and memorized it. Piercing dark blue eyes and for all the smile in the publicity shot there was the impression of a hardness in him. Bruce Wayne was brilliant like a diamond. Dazzling but uncompromising all the way through.

"How about Luthor?"

"Just as smart as Wayne, just as secretive. He's close to Wayne, which is why I guess he's never left Gotham even though his parents were Metropolitan to the core. He's more new-money acting than Wayne, who's old money. A bit of a looser canon and the risk taker of the two." She brought up his photograph and Clark found himself... struck by it. A smiling man, not looking at the camera, with rich long red hair that seemed torn as to whether it wanted to curl or wave.

His eyes widened a moment as they settled on the eyes. 

It was him. He felt like someone had dropped the best part of a building on him, which he knew from experience to have the same sort of impact for all his invulnerability.

"That's... Luthor?"

"Uh-huh. He used to be quite the man about Gotham, if you know what I mean, but after the car accident, I think he spends a lot of time helping Wayne." And going out to gay clubs to rather pointedly pick up guys like Clark, apparently. What the hell.

Christ, he must have been 'slumming it' or whatever they called it. Clark felt any last vestiges of self esteem dribble out of his ears along with his brains, pride and common sense. "Right. Uh... yeah. Do we know anything about him? Them?"

"Well, my Freudian slips should cue you that it's hard to think of them as anything but brothers. They're almost _always_ together, like... twins or something. Maybe they have a hive brain that they have to share between them. I don't know." Lois moved to the third picture -- the two of them side by side at some conference or another, casual. They looked comfortable in each other's space in a way that only people who were very close could ever attain.

"Isn't that something to do with when their parents were killed? And Luthor and Wayne had the same guardian or something?" Clark was talking on autopilot. He usually enjoyed his job but this was going to be torture. In a 'I'd rather chew on a bit of Kryptonite' way.

He'd... fucked the guy. Slept with him, and he should have known that the guy seemed experienced and comfortable with what was going on. He probably did it all the time. Maybe Wayne didn't know he swung that way, so he operated under the radar so to speak.

"Yeah. The Wayne family butler, actually. He petitioned to get care of Luthor, since Luthor was headed for foster care anyway. Their parents were killed together, and the then-kids were with them. That had to be traumatic."

"So the whole brothers vibe," Clark confirmed. "So are we looking to scoop their big launch prototype or something?"

"Yep. Or anything." Lois winked at him. "You know, any corporate scandal, anything like that. By anyone really. But we _want_ to scoop the prototype. Or get the first leak. Up to it?"

Up to it. He'd slept with the story. On the other hand would Luthor even recognize him? Or was he another in a long succession one night stands?

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess. Free passes to a place where they hand out free gadget samples, every guy's dream right?" He tried to quirk a smile with only medium success.

"Uh-huh. Or at least, it _should_ be." Lois leaned back, eyeing him as she relinquished control of his computer back to him. "But you don't seem to be. What's up?"

Clark just shook his head. "Nothing, I'm fine. Didn't sleep well last night."

Because he'd been fucking a really nice-seeming guy who'd then tried to sneak out on him. And it just didn't make sense. Shit.

"Okay, well... rest up tonight?" Lois grinned at him. "And remember, tomorrow we show up at the City convention center with our press passes at _6_ AM. For the pleasure of waiting around. Take your cell and we'll meet in the parking lot."

Lois was going to be in her element, he knew it. And he, he was going to be trying to get an interview with a man who hadn't wanted to speak to him after having sex with him. 

"Sure, I'll pick us up a coffee on the way over. Chloe going to be there, or hasn't the Inquirer got passes this year? I heard they were on the way to being blacklisted," he said wandering away from his personal life in case Lois started thinking about it too much.

"Blacklisted because they flubbed the last Tech Trade show with that 'treat the man with the spinal injury like a retard' moment." Only Lois could scold someone for being politically incorrect and make the same mistake herself in the same sentence.

Clark nearly physically winced at that. Tact was something he was beginning to think Lois had surgically removed at birth. "Well, it's a little rich to patronize someone who's making billions. Who else is going aside from those two?"

"John Henry Irons. Talia Head. Some notable scientists that apparently aren't notable enough for me to remember them..." Lois shrugged her shoulders. "It's clocking out time, so... I'll see you tomorrow, Kent. Bright and early, you bring the coffee."

"Sure," Clark agreed turning back to his article. "I'm just going to finish this and then..." Don his spandex and try and accept the fact he was the world's biggest freak. "...go home and call my parents."

Lois shook her head a little at the mention of calling his parents. "Okay. You have fun, Kent. See you!"

He raised his hand to her as she swept out of the office, sinking a little lower in his seat with apprehension and depression. He had two scenarios. One, that Lex Luthor would not recognize him, which was possible. Or two, that he did and how embarrassing would that be? He didn't want to come across as some obsessive stalker, but he did just want to know a few things.

Was it him? Something wrong? Was he really bad at sex or was there just something wrong? Did he stink of alien in the same way Chloe had once told him he reeked of Gay?

As a planned set of interview questions that was probably edging over into a Lois level of lack of tact.

He needed to remember his _reason_ for being there, but... he wanted those answers. The side answers that were more important to him than that damned story. If he was going to be alone he'd like to know if it was something he could do anything about or whether it was something he was born with and doomed to deal with until he died.

* * *

Helicopters. He hated traveling by helicopter, but that was what was coming for him and Bruce in an hour. Bruce's mood had been alternating low and high -- neither wanted to leave Gotham for more than a night, but they both wanted to do the trade show. Add in the fact Lex was pretty sure that Bruce still wanted to hang him by his toes for his antics of the previous night and...

There had been easier times of inspecting Bruce for bruises and pressure wounds than he was experiencing that day. Lex had to make sure Bruce was okay for travel, and usually it was a careful, sensual inspection. Usually.

Today Bruce seemed to be determined to be nothing but business. "Are you listening to me? I said that if you're taking Batman to Metropolis, you have to be aware of the way the land lies and the local oddballs."

"Are they worse than Joker?" Lex lifted an eyebrow at Bruce as he rubbed at his calf. Bruce couldn't feel it, but his muscles were still almost as firm as they'd been when the accident had happened. 

"They have their moments. They also have their protector as well, and I'm not convinced that the local 'superhero' isn't more dangerous than any villain or assortment of villains on the planet," Bruce said darkly.

"Superman, you mean?" Lex lifted his head a little at that, knowing that Bruce could see the interest in his eyes at the topic. Of course, Nighthawk had been sidelined due to a dislocated shoulder and a gunshot wound during that fiasco, and Bruce had experienced the pleasure of working with Superman all by himself.

When Lex had healed, he'd had to protect Gotham in Bruce's absence. Even so, the revelation of an apparently altruistic alien taking up residence and territory over the fastest developing city in the world was enough to spark anyone's curiosity.

"Superman." Bruce nodded. "Though the 'man' part is a misnomer. He's an alien, and the only information we have as to his motives is that which he gives to the press, which sounds like bad propaganda. Truth and Justice." He lapsed into brooding silence, his cynicism almost tangible though largely unspoken.

"Which clearly don't exist," Lex deadpanned as he let his hands wander up past Bruce's knee, still massaging gently, though he knew Bruce couldn't feel it. It gave him some semblance of comfort in the remembered intimacy. "Bruce, have you read our press-releases?"

"Yes, yes, I know," Bruce replied a little irritably. "Lex, what do you know about Superman?"

"That he can't compare to the Saint Francis of Assisi-like comparisons that's in _your_ WayneLuthor Enterprises Biography?" Lex smiled slyly up at his brother as he leaned in to kiss his knee. It wasn't that Bruce could feel it, because he couldn't -- it was that Bruce could see the motion. "I've read your files and spent my coffee break studying the way he moves."

"Then you should know that his natural ability surpasses our own." It obviously galled Bruce to admit that. "He's an alien with powers which I have been unable to test the upper limit of, though in our brief alliance, he proved formidable and... oddly naive."

"I'll study him if I happen to run into him in the city," Lex promised easily. "But I'm not going to be picking a fight with a bigger dog on his own territory. Batman is a legend, a myth, and it's hard to maintain that fear status if I end up smeared on a wall by an alien."

"I'll take the Nighthawk interface," Bruce replied, clearly uneasy about venturing into new territory without the means of defending himself. "But before we go, you must get an item out of storage in the Batcave. Alfred knows where it is."

Lex leaned right, and started to rub and feel his way down Bruce's other leg. They sometimes did that in bed, but when Bruce was being moody it was easier to do with Bruce sitting and Lex at his feet. Lex was willing to acquiesce that much if it would soothe Bruce a little. "So, _what_ is it?"

"A ring containing a pure gem form of the substance that is Superman's only discernible weakness," Bruce said flatly, obviously still tense. "If you have to go out into Metropolis, then you won't go unprepared."

"You want me... to wear that the whole time?" Lex twitched an eyebrow again, stopping. "Bruce, that's instigating."

"You'll keep it in your utility belt. As a precaution," Bruce said looking at him. "You have no idea what this... creature is capable of."

Maybe Bruce was worried for him. He hadn't done this sort of thing when he was Batman. Perhaps the suspicion was a blood relative of his frustration. "I don't recall him hurting you." Lex shifted to his knees, checking the tops of Bruce's thighs. He'd already checked Bruce's back, ass, hips, all of that. Bruce had been surprisingly eager to have underwear back on before Lex finished. Probably because of what he'd done the night before.

"No. But I don't believe in taking unnecessary chances." It was close to concern, a concern that drove Bruce mad when all he needed to be able to do was be there, able to watch Lex's back himself. It drove him to frustrated anger when he was put in a position where he just couldn't do that, and he knew it.

If there was one consolation it was that if Bruce didn't care for his 'brother' he wouldn't give him such a hard time.

Love was tough. "All right. I'll take care of the bat-stuff, and you... are cleared for takeoff, Bruce."

"Thank you," Bruce replied quietly, not meeting his eyes and the lines of his body stiffly proud in the face of the intimate care he had just received, as if he had been insulted by its necessity rather than comforted. "Is Alfred ready?"

"Yes. He's been ready for days." Lex started to stand up, but stopped when he was at eye level with Bruce. "Hey. Are... are we okay, after what happened the other night?"

Bruce looked at him. "What do you mean?" he asked finally. 

"I mean... I don't want you to be angry at me. Stay angry, I mean. It was pretty stupid, so if you're still angry at me for a few more days, I'm okay. I expect that. I probably deserve it. But I'm not going to do it again."

"Lex, what you do with your... social life is nothing to do with me." Bruce paused a moment. "Anymore. It would be ridiculous to expect otherwise. My main concern was for your safety."

Fuck. "No, Bruce, it... you _are_ my social life. Accident, no accident, I really want to be with you. If you'll just... _let_ me..."

"Lex, lets not go over this again," Bruce replied cutting him dead with a flat emotionless tone . "I can't give you what you need. You have a sex drive, a rather impressive one from memory and I would be selfish in the extreme to prevent you from keeping it exercised."

"You have a sex drive, too," Lex growled, lapsing into his 'Batman' rumble in his effort to push sense at his lover. "You've just started to work it out _only_ when you're in the shower. I can hear hand on skin, Bruce, and I know you're not patting yourself on the back when you're in there."

"So, I've regained a little sensation there," Bruce shrugged as if that revelation was nothing. "This doesn't change the fact I can no longer give you what you need. And I haven't been able to since the car went off that bridge cutting through Smallville."

And had not hit the river, but the far bank and the car crumpled into a cage around him, killing his driver and robbing him of sensation in his legs and twisting him up as surely as the metal that had confined him.

Frustrating. Bruce had always been all or nothing, and now that his 'all' had changed, he wasn't going to give Lex anything. Of course, they should have been zipping busily around with last minute details, but Lex never had had a good sense of timing for 'relationship' questions.

"I don't care. I'll get a huge fucking vibrator, but just let me _touch_ you like I used to, Bruce. I miss you."

Bruce looked at him as if considering something, a flicker of an emotion visible through all his careful shields. "We'll see," he replied enigmatically. "I'll consider it."

Consider it. "I'll hold you to that. And bring it up again tomorrow." Lex leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to Bruce's mouth. "I'll go ask Alfred about the ring now."

For the first time in a long time he got a measure of a response as lips moved almost tenderly against his, before withdrawing. "I'll finish getting ready. You go, I can manage."

"I know you can," Lex smiled at his almost-brother, his best friend. "Meet you at the helicopter pad."

Bruce gave him a nod. "Don't forget the ring. If the alien gets territorial, you may have to warn him off."

That was told to Lex while he was already moving to leave the room, leaving Bruce to get dressed and put himself together. "Warn him off. Right. I'll remember that."

Because the Batman would never back down to anyone, no matter where he was.

* * *

Getting to Metropolis was a relatively painless experience, even if Bruce was insufferably calm about the whole thing. Alfred had ensure that their 'other' equipment was on route and was ensuring their Penthouse in the WayneLuthor Towers was fit for habitation while they both went to make their triumphant entry to the trade show. 

It had taken over the entire Metropolis Exhibition center and security was high enough that they had to wait for a landing slot and then be checked over for anything dangerous before they were allowed to enter the building.

As Bruce said, the effort was heartening, but there wasn't a scanner built that would pick up the contents of what they jokingly described as his 'utility chair'.

Not given what Bruce could do with high impact carbon and plastics, they couldn't. 

Lex smiled as he followed after Bruce, shadowing him as close as he could. If something went wrong, as long as Bruce had his chair, they could handle themselves pretty well. The Exhibition Center was probably full of security holes, after all. Besides, he knew from experience that the most dangerous things were not necessarily weapons, but the mind of his opponents and their willingness to use it in destructive means. Habit had taught him that someone like the Joker could make a simple pen into a killing instrument simple because the borders of sane thought did not apply in his twisted world. 

It wasn't always a comforting thing that he could think in the same way as his enemies, even for the means of defense.

The chair was a marvel of technology and could navigate with very subtle guidance from its occupant, which meant that Bruce was free to talk and look around at the same time. "We should take a look and see if Hamilton is freelancing this year. He did a paper on quantum reflexive circuitry that was theoretical, but I would be exceptionally interested to see if he's managed to find something that can superconduct at the necessary temperatures to make it possible," Bruce said as he looked down from the balcony level to the Trade show floor spread out beneath them as far as the eye could see. "Busy already, and it's first day."

"Mmhm. We should try to find Hamilton. We've got a few hours before you speak tonight..." Lex looked sideways at Bruce, trying to coax a smile from him. "Don't you want to see what's competing with us?"

"I would hardly call it competing," Bruce replied with a faint half smile. "More like waiting for them to catch up."

"Smart walls." Lex chuckled as he laid a hand on Bruce's shoulder. "We're geniuses, Bruce. They'll never catch up as long as we don't rest on our laurels."

"Lex, we could rest on our laurels all we want and still outstrip the majority of them." Bruce was quietly confident and didn't protest the hand there, which was a good sign. Perhaps he hadn't been messing with Lex's head when he had said he would maybe allow things to improve. "Not to say that there aren't some people out there making advancements in areas we don't touch. Alfred is going to be doing some surreptitious looking around."

"Pay no attention to the British butler behind the curtain." Lex's lips twitched; he looked up to Alfred like a father, the man who did everything impressively and set an example for both he and Bruce to never give up. He was seemingly an expert on most things they attempted themselves, including the art of subterfuge. "We'll be sure to surreptitiously look in the other direction, then."

"You know as well as I do that anything we do or say will be scrutinized and noted, whereas Alfred is a master of apparent ignorant questioning," Bruce smiled again. Perhaps he had just needed a change of scenery to lighten his mood, or something where he could be active in some form. "I still don't know how he finds out what people would like to drink. I've never caught him asking."

"He explained it to me once as putting a person's personality traits into a category, and seeing what drink matches best. He's right ninety percent of the time just from that." Lex turned slowly, his own mood buoyed. "Let's find that elevator."

"One day, I'm going to make a stair add on to this thing," Bruce groused. "Enhance the technology they've put on the remote all terrain probes. Then I won't be stranded if an elevator goes out of service. Or I'll find a workable antigravity device instead of accelerated antiprotons and a null-space bubble. As yet I don't have a hankering to be sitting on a portable atomic accelerator."

"Are you sure?" Lex laughed out loud as they turned back to the elevator. "I'm sure you'd make it out of the radiation better than me."

"You do have a tendency for the spectacular laboratory disasters, however beneficial their side effects." Bruce agreed. He waited patiently and then maneuvered inside, executing a rather clever function that allowed his chair to turn on the spot. "I really hope they don't have that obnoxious oaf here who thought not having the use of my legs constituted not having the use of my brains."

"I had him blacklisted, Bruce." Lex stabbed the first floor button, and watched the doors close. "I wish I could've ran over his foot with my _car_."

"It did supply me with some measure of amusement," Bruce replied, his blue eyes gleaming with appreciation of the sentiment. "I wonder if this year's reporters will be as entertaining."

"I can make them amusing," he offered to Bruce. "Bait them with information, reel them in, and then bore them to death. That's a kick." And it was time to stop talking like that, because any second now the doors would open. They could feel the elevator settling to a stop, that final tiny jolt

"Is my tie straight?" Bruce asked unnecessarily, looking directly up into Lex's eyes with his own, deep sapphire gaze, his head tilted at a deliberately irresistible angle.

He was playing with Lex, offering a kiss at a dangerous moment.

And after so long of not getting an offer, Lex just couldn't resist. Not those gorgeous blue eyes, so deep, so much darker than his own grey-blue. Bruce was older than Lex was at heart, he'd always been an older soul than Lex could ever be. And now he was teasing him... "It's a little crooked..."

Lex leaned down, pressing his lips against Bruce's while mimicking straightening Bruce's tie.

For a brief moment there was a flare of their old heat and passion in the response before the irritating ping of the elevator doors indicating they were opening to the world of their competitors and allies both.

"Damn." Lex pulled back fast, but he felt like he was still bent down to kiss Bruce, and he could still feel the lingering pressure against his lips and the breath of Bruce's silent laugh as he pulled away.

Bruce was still looking up at him with that maddening smile of his. "Just something to keep your attention from straying too much," he murmured. "Lead on Lex."

"Stray? Stray where?" After a kiss like that, he would've been a _fool_ to stray. That was what he really wanted, after all. Love, to really _feel_ Bruce's more intense emotions, not... well, he could life without sex if he got the other. "Leading the way. I still think you need to put a cowcatcher on that and really get people out of your way... " 

Lex stepped out into the fray, and seemingly all eyes were on them as they exited the elevator.

It was unsurprising considering they were the representatives of one of the world's biggest companies, both billionaires in their own right, and more importantly for some, still single and apparently eligible

They needed no announcement. Lex with his mane of red hair was instantly recognizable and Bruce with his wheelchair was as good as any clarion call for attention.

When they'd started out, Lex had joked that maybe they needed neon signs, too, but that had been before the accident had made Bruce even easier to pick out than before. Lex settled a hand on the back of Bruce's chair, habit, staying by his side as they walked onto the showroom floor.

"Looks like next year this show is going to need more space."

"Mm. There are more of the independents this year," Bruce commented. He liked looking at the independents. Some of their best R&D people had come from cruising shows like this. "You don't have to spend all your time with me, Lex."

That was a hint, wasn't it? "I'm going to see what the chip producers have been up to, then. I'll... meet up with you in a couple of hours." They had earpieces in, and Lex was damn well going to leave his on so Bruce could eavesdrop on him and vice versa.

"I'm going to visit John Henry Irons. See if I can push him for some of his development work," Bruce said in a low voice. "He does always look at you suspiciously."

"Ah, gotcha. Why does no one look at _you_ suspiciously," Lex teased as he moved to leave Bruce to his entertainment.

"I'm a cripple," Bruce replied with a sardonic smile. "I'm incapable of mischief."

Perfect parting words that made Lex have to suppress deep laughter as he walked away. "Good luck, Bruce..."

"I'll find you Lex, never fear," Bruce replied as he turned to make a stately progress through the crowds, people parting before him as if he were Moses commanding the Red Sea.

It was moments like that where Lex didn't have to wonder why he and Bruce hadn't killed each other yet.

He turned away instead of longingly watching Bruce leave, and headed right for the chipmakers' section, just like he'd told Bruce. It was the place where he was sure that the least attention was, so it should be comparatively peaceful and quiet.

* * *

Lois had suggested splitting up, and Clark had agreed if only because Lois was talking nineteen to the dozen and distracting him. The idea was whoever could get an interview with whichever of the big two they were aiming for, would be all to the good. Perry wanted a Story, so a Story he would get, by hook or by crook or dubious Lois Lane Reporter commando tactics.

Privately, Clark was hoping it would be Bruce Wayne he managed to find, but in the mean time he had managed to get two very good smaller pieces that Perry would be happy with and a nice human interest piece on someone who had invented a revolutionary prosthetic limb interface because his daughter had been in an accident and had lost her leg. 

He did find the electronics section interesting -- he shared his dad's interest in gadgets, and unfortunately his sparse wallet as well. That didn't stop him appreciating the ingenuity of invention that surrounded him.

He was finishing up with one vendor as he became aware that the attention in his area was suddenly gravitating to somewhere off behind him. People who normally scrutinized him to see if he was going to steal something from their stand were looking over him and he turned to see what the interest was.

Lex Luthor. He had a _mane_ of red hair that Clark could just imagine in his fingers, could remember in his fingers, and an interested look on his face as he stopped near a small-name chipmaker's booth.

Clark hesitated. He could just pretend that he hadn't seen him. He could just avoid the faint possibility that he would recognized.

But...

He was a reporter and it would be uncomfortably like lying, letting everyone down. Anyway, the odds of being recognized were slight considering the fact the man had run off without even exchanging names. He was wearing glasses, a bad suit and he knew he looked completely different than he did when he went out somewhere like Gotham. If Clark Kent could fool people that he wasn't Superman, the odds were that he wouldn't be recognized as the man picked up by a billionaire in a gay club.

It really did sound sordid put that way.

He got out his notepad and moved forward, managing to ease in closely to the 'celebrity'.

"Uh, Mr. Luthor? Would you have time for a few words?"

"Sure, just..." The man turned slowly, and stopped short, staring at Clark. "Uh."

Oh. That wasn't a good sound. Possibly recognition or possibly just recognition of a reporter as a lower life-form.

"Clark Kent, Daily Planet," he continued doggedly. "I'd really like to talk to you."

He should have said 'about WayneLuthor Enterprises' new innovations' but somehow that part of the sentence didn't make it out and he found himself looking away from the other man's eyes as he remember the last time they had met eye to eye.

Or interview. He should've said interview, but the redheaded man was still half-staring at Clark before he stepped forwards and put a hand on Clark's arm. Clark could hear the oddest thing when Lex got near -- the voices and background noise from another location somewhere else in the hall. And Lois, just faintly, of all people. "Sure. Why don't we find someplace, ah, less crowded."

"I'd appreciate that, Mr. Luthor," Clark replied, fighting a feeling of complete confusion and panic. He hadn't felt like this since Smallville when he had unpleasant confrontations with Lana and Chloe on a pretty regular basis. He allowed himself to be led, focusing a moment on that other sound and filtering out until he could hear the electronic hum that was sub-audible to everyone apart from him. An X-ray glance revealed an electronic device in the man's ear.

He was sure it wasn't a hearing aid.

Which was pretty interesting, since why would Lex need some sort of... device in his ear? Security purposes? Did he monitor or record all of his conversations. Not that that explained how Clark could faintly pick up _Lois_ 's voice coming from the piece.

"So, uh. What do you think of the show so far?" Lex seemed to know where he was going, because he walked ahead of Clark, weaving through stands towards the 'back'.

"It's well attended. All the big names are here and some good newcomers," Clark said absently. "I've had some good interviews so far."

"I'm sure you have." Lex pushed open a door that led into a narrow hallway, and then popped open another door that let them into what Clark recognized as a 'media' room. Soundproofed for quick broadcasts and recording, but there wasn't any equipment set up.

Clark turned around as the door shut, fighting back that surge of attraction that had led him to go home with the other man without even knowing his name. It was embarrassing. It was obvious that Lex Luthor was not interested in him but his body wasn't listening to anything so petty as common sense. 

It meant finding the words to do anything sensible like ask a technical question was beyond him.

"I... actually hadn't expected to see you again."

Well, that answered the unspoken question. "I... gathered that," Clark said awkwardly. "Um. I..." He tried looking at Lex Luthor again and the reaction was just the same. His body had a mind of it's own that had nothing to do with the depression and hurt he had felt. It ignored it all and fairly hummed with the reaction of being close to him again.

"I should apologize. What... I..." He trailed off, then laughed as he leaned against the edge of the interview table. "God. I'm really sorry, and it's hard to explain."

"No, look its okay. It was pretty obvious after I found out who you were," Clark cut in hurriedly. "I'm not in your league, and just..."

"No, it's not that. You're... you're a gorgeous man." Cheap suit or not, apparently. "I can't be publicly out. It would damage the company."

He hadn't exactly considered that and he felt embarrassed that it hadn't even come up in his thoughts. "I'm not going to make anything of it," Clark replied looking at him. "I.... something's been bugging me. I felt really good with you. I mean really... like something special. I... just have to know, was there something wrong? With me? I don't mean that in a fishing for compliments way, just in a.. am I doing something wrong that I could correct sort of thing?"

He was blazing red with embarrassment by the time he finished. Even he knew that it sounded pathetic to himself but he had to know.

"Something... wrong with you?" Luthor seemed taken aback as he looked back at Clark. "Are you joking? You're... you're probably one of the better lovers I've had. I... I actually decided to stop doing that. I could tell when I left that I'd hurt you, and I'm sorry. I didn't _mean_ to hurt you."

"You weren't the first to leave, and I just thought..." Clark cleared his throat. "Candidly, I thought you would be the only person with whom I've slept who didn't know me well enough beforehand to be polite. I mean, I really enjoyed it. Really. And I was thinking that maybe there was something a little more there than a bit of physical relief. And when you left... " Clark gave a small laugh. "I guess I started thinking I might be like one of those people who think they're really good at singing or something but everyone is too embarrassed to tell them how bad they really are. It's not about you hurting me or anything, I don't have any right to expect anything of you."

"I know, but..." Lex tipped his head down faintly, smiling at Clark. "How would you like to start over? On the right foot?"

"You want to start over?" Clark's expression was one of amazement. "I thought we were finished."

Lex gave a faint shrug of his shoulders, and offered a hand to Clark. "Hi, I'm Lex Luthor. Sometimes, I'm an asshole, so you'll have to forgive me. It's a defense mechanism."

Clark reached out and gripped his hand, feeling that same shock of recognition he had felt when they had danced in the flickering lights of a Gotham club, hands straying over each other. "Hi, I'm Clark Kent. If you listen to Lois, I'm a hick from Smallville who manages to stay alive in Metropolis through some freaky luck and not knowing the rules." His smile was genuine. "It's good to meet you, Lex, even if I have to now try and earn my wage by interviewing you."

Lex had a strong grip and a firm handshake as he kept smiling mellowly back at Clark. "As long as you don't publish anything about the sex. I'm game."

"You have my word," Clark said nodding and not wanting to let go of that hand. "Lets get a bit more comfortable, and I'll try and finagle a hint or two from you about what prototype WayneLuthor Enterprises is showcasing this year." He twitched a grin at his own honesty.

"All right. I wish you luck, for I've been threatened with suffering if I talk about it before Bruce unveils it..." He smiled as he pulled back from Clark and pulled a chair out for himself.

It was possible one of the more enjoyable interviews that either of them had ever done. It became rapidly obvious that Clark's apparent assessment of himself as a country hick didn't disguise the fact that he had a keen mind and a sharp wit of his own. Usually in these situations, Lex would start genially at the other person's level and then effortlessly lift himself away to just beyond their reach and sit there with amusement as he saw through every one of their easy ploys to get information from him. Clark, on the other hand, followed him all the way up and kept pushing him. He nearly slipped a couple of times, lured by his interviewer's apparent understanding and enthusiasm for the subjects he was generalizing around, as Clark asked specific questions that made him itch to clarify the applications behind what they were doing.

"... you're not playing fair, Mr. Kent," Lex grinned as he sat back in the chair. "I've already said too much."

"Are you sure?" Clark smiled at him. "You don't want to tell me any more?"

"We'll leave it at this -- you'll find today's demonstration and unveiling very... touching."

"I'm sure I will," Clark got up, reluctant to leave. "I seem to have taken up a lot of your valuable time."

Slowly, Lex got to his feet, too, smiling to himself, one hasty promise to Bruce eroding under the reaction he seemed to have for the other man. "It was enjoyable. Maybe I'll see you later? I mean it, too."

"Here, I... uh..." Clark fumbled around for a business card. "Feel free to call. I'd enjoy seeing you again." He passed it over, living in hope, but not in genuine expectation.

Lex looked down at it, and then glanced back up at Clark. "I would, too. We're going to be in the city for a few more days before we go back to Gotham, so..." 

Clark gave it in his hand. "If it's appropriate, then, well.." He blushed a little and gave a faint smile. "If not, I understand."

Lex clutched it and pocketed it smoothly, smiling at Clark. "I'm really sorry about the other night."

"Don't be. It was unreasonable of me to expect any more," Clark said as he reached for the door. He smiled slightly, "Just because I'd like it doesn't mean I'm going to get it."

Even if he did feel a lot more positive about things now.

It wasn't anything wrong with _him_. Luthor just had... reasons, Clark guessed. Running a business, a busy life working on new projects, and a 'brother' that Clark guessed just possibly might not approve of Lex's sexuality. It was hard to tell. 

"Well... you _are_ a nice enough guy." Lex's eyes drifted to a clock, and in the quiet while Lex checked the time, it was suddenly clear that he was listening to more than their moment. 

~"Meet me on the upper walk."~ Clark heard coming from the earpiece

"I should get going. It was nice to... start over, Clark. Good luck covering the rest of the show."

"A pleasure to talk to you Mr. ... uh, Lex. I'm sure your prototypes will be as successful as you hope." Clark replied. "Maybe we'll bump into each other again."

God, he hoped so. As literally as he could manage.

It was desperate of him, sure,. but... the red-haired man was dashing and handsome and brilliant. Flippant, too, with an odd sense of humor that made him want to laugh and smile. "Yeah." He gave a faint wave to Clark as he pulled the door open.

Clark preceded him out into the public eye pleased at that. He offered his hand for one final business like handshake.

~"It's important."~

"Have a nice night." Lex shook Clark's hand fairly quickly, and turned away to leave in the direction opposite the way he'd come.

Clark watched him and then decided to follow him discretely at the sort of distance only he could manage and find out why something was 'important'. Business before pleasure after all.

* * *

Once upon a time, Lex had had trouble splitting his attention between two distinctly different sources of sound. That was a long time passed, and Lex managed it smoothly now.

He just really wanted to wonder if important meant really important, or just mildly important. Talking discreetly to each other required as few words as possible when they were somewhere public like that. Still, he walked fast up to the upper walkway, and followed the motion of Bruce's eyes to a doorway that he hoped would close and close them into a quiet room once they went in.

The other billionaire navigated his way into the room ahead of him evidently awaiting his arrival. Somehow Bruce managed to look like a king on a throne when he sat like that, his fingers idly flicking over a sequence on the arm panel that would automatically jam any listening device with white noise within a twenty meter radius.

Obviously he meant private as well as important.

Lex closed the door, and took a moment to make sure that the locking mechanism actually locked. "So, Bruce..."

"I could hear that you got caught by a reporter but I was matching wits with one of my own," Bruce replied, looking up at him.

"Lois Lane, I could tell," Lex offered. "I was cornered by her partner. What happened?"

"She was more interesting to fence with than the usual reporter fare," Bruce replied. "But that's not the important thing. The Chair picked up an encrypted sequence of electronic digitized transmissions."

The Chair. Occasionally, Lex wondered if Bruce loved it more than he loved Lex. Only occasionally. "And could it decrypt?"

"It took some time, which says something for the complexity of the code. But yes." Bruce tapped some commands. "I'm uploading the content to your commlink now."

Lex pressed a finger over the ear device, smiling to himself a little as he looked at Bruce's fingers on the panel. "Always on duty. Do you think we're going to have to send for Alfred?"

"Yes. And so will you when you listen," Bruce said and pressed play.

There was a hiss and a crackle and then an accented voice said. ~ ETA 3 hours and counting. Projectors in position and ready for activation ~

~Copy that. Team 2 and 3 in position. Maintain status until ordered. Be prepared for resistance. Team 4 is ready to nullify security ~

Lex started to nod as he listed. "Be prepared for resistance. Bruce, send for Alfred and I'll help provide that resistance."

Bruce nodded. "And to think that I thought Metropolis would be different to Gotham. Perhaps we can sit back and let Superman save the day hmm?"

He actually laughed at that as if the thought was absurd.

"No, Bruce, I don't want someone else to save my ass." Lex moved over towards his 'brother' watching his eyes. "Let's get going, then."

"Mm. " Bruce looked like he was going to say something more, something a little more intimate but hesitated and let the moment pass. "I'll send a signal when I drop the jamming field. Three hours will coincide with the high point of the day."

"The unveiling," Lex reminded him. "Do you want to go through with it, or...?"

"If we announce there's a problem it might tip people off. I'll do it. You can... loiter protectively," Bruce suggested.

"In my suit?" Lex suggested almost lightly.

"That might be appropriate," Bruce agreed. "If it's a false alarm you can rejoin me pleading one of your improvised on the spot excuses."

"I haven't used 'diarrhea' as an excuse in a while," Lex deadpanned, waiting for Bruce to take the bait. Even just a little.

"Not since you were thirteen," Bruce smiled up at him. 

"I had to tell Alfred _some_ reason why I was in the bathroom for so long." Lex looked oddly wistful. "I still don't think he bought it, but he really didn't want to know. Well. Let's go."

If his partner had been anyone else, there might have been reassuring words or some declaration of affection. Instead, there was only a noise of assent and the sound of Bruce deactivating the jamming signal as they exited the room.

Lex had become accustomed to it over the span of the last decade, and Bruce's lack of melodrama was reassuring in the face of danger. It was if what he expected them to do, Lex to do as Batman was nothing remarkable and should be routine and not a challenge.

And maybe it would be.

As they left, Lex spared a thought to _hoping_ that it would be.

* * *

Clark's mood was predictably better to the point where Lois accused him of filling up on one too many of the free coffees that a lot of the stands were offering. 

Things had gone a lot better than he had ever considered they could go. Lex Luthor had not ignored him, forgotten him or otherwise brushed him off. In some respects he had hinted at another liaison which, though his moral sense flinched a little at sex for the sake of sex, his body was all for it and holding a wild party in his underwear just at the thought.

That was not easy to disguise as he tried to distract himself.

The best possible distraction was for him to provide something to keep his mind busy with, which ended up being watching a presentation. The WayneLuthor Enterprises presentation, run by Bruce Wayne. There was a living room setup on the stage, a fancy, expensive looking set, and Bruce was explaining and _showing_ how certain places received and understood touch on their newest venture of Smart Walls.

It was fascinating technology. And equally fascinating was the occasional glimpse Clark caught of something that shouldn't have been there.

High up above on a gantry, he caught a flicker of movement. A figure in black with body armor laced with circuitry and substances not immediately obvious. It wasn't until he glimpsed the mask that he realized who it was. The mystery was why he was there at all.

In Clark's city.

He hadn't seen the Batman in years -- his experience went back to when there had been Batman and Nighthawk, Gotham's defenders. Rumor had been, and evidence had supported it, that since Nighthawk had gone missing (or maybe had just quit), Batman had become more vicious about dealing with the scum of his city than ever. But he stayed in his city.

He wasn't supposed to lurk in the shadows of a Metropolis Exhibition center.

He wasn't sure that if there was some bizarre superhero etiquette about moving onto another territory, but it did seem rude, and a little worrying to ignore things. Knowing that he could keep track of things at the presentation and multitask in a courtesy call to his interloper from Gotham, he made his way out and then a few moments later was high up in the shadows floating behind Batman.

"Welcome back to Metropolis, Batman," he said quietly drifting closer. "Is this how you get your technical edge?"

At first, it seemed that Batman was simply going to ignore him. But he flung himself off on the other direction, a full body motion that moved him to a girder that was leading _away_ from the presentation area.

Clark flew around him to intercept him. "Was it something I said? I was just curious to see what Gotham cities finest was doing in Metropolis."

"Someone is planning to attack the convention." Batman's voice was still a growl that went right down Clark's spine, low and sharp while he stayed crouching deftly on the narrow metal rail. The first time he had met Batman, the same thing had happened. Or perhaps it was the fact he was so assured and confident about everything, and Clark had spent most of his life doubting himself. The attraction had stayed beneath the surface in the face of that particular mission and would have to do so again.

That got his attention. "Need help?"

"That depends on what happens." Tightlipped, Batman's eyes traveled down to the stage once more, studying something.

Clark followed his gaze, trying to work out what he should be seeing or hearing. He opened up his super hearing and was almost immediately distracted from what he should be focusing on.

He could hear the echo again and more than that, he could hear a heart beat. A heart beat that he had last heard only a day or so ago when he rested his head on another mans chest in comfort and contentedness.

It stunned him for a moment, left him wondering what the hell was going on -- other than the suddenly sharply obvious.

He'd... fucked Batman? Lex Luthor? Lex Luthor didn't seem like a Batman type of man. Not that he didn't have access to the technology, no, he had it in abundance, but... It just didn't seem _right_. But the facts were there, cold and sharp -- he'd had sex with a man who had that heartbeat, had just interviewed the same man, and now that same man, albeit in a suit, was looming above the stage, stocked with his own company's technology, looking for something that Clark couldn't figure out.

He remembered when he had first met Batman and had been in awe. The man had been so self confident, assured and controlled that he felt a bumbling amateur next to him. He still felt that way. He was meant to be in control here in his town and yet Batman had got wind of an attack before he was even aware of it.

"Give... give me a hint of what you're looking for, maybe I can help?" he offered again.

"I picked up a rogue transmission." Faintly, he shifted the weight of his body, like he was going to move again. "They're waiting for the peak when most people are gathered in one location. Go take a look at the perimeter." Even with years of time passed, he was still self confident, controlled, and blunt.

There was a part of Clark that bristled at taking orders on his own turf, but he reasoned that it was an efficient use of time. He could cover it quicker than Batman, and could be back in moments if there was any trouble. "Right."

He didn't waste time arguing, though his Smallville manners pointed out that if he had asked the same there might have been some semblance of courtesy in there. Perhaps it was an act. Or perhaps the Lex Luthor he had slept with was the act. He wasn't sure.

Nevertheless he darted off because sometimes things just had to be done.

And in his wake, Batman held vigil over the hall like some gruesome Gotham gargoyle.

The perimeter seemed normal, at least during the first pass -- but during the second everything went very wrong in a moment without warning.

Clark hovered a moment, picking out movement and the subsonic whine of several sources of high powered machinery powering up out of nowhere. In the brief split second when he was trying to triangulate on a source, he was too late. Somewhere down below him a switch was thrown and he was caught unawares in the event horizon of some sort of domed plasma force field that sprang into opalescent life around the Exhibition center.

He was drowning in energy, twisting and writhing as that force strove to convert him to plasma by stripping atom from atom and leaving him a mass of incoherent particles in a soup of charged energy. 

It was like being inside a lightning bolt that wouldn't fade and after an eternity he somehow managed to push his way out, where he fell out of sight to the ground into an unconscious crumpled heap.

* * *

He had to wait for the opportune moment. He just had to keep telling himself that, because there wasn't such a thing as an actual opportune moment.

People had been herded up. Separated in a way that seemed haphazard, but... Lex caught on to the pattern pretty quickly. They were separating the smarter people from the workers, the reporters, the attendees -- they were put into one group, and then were herded by bulky looking men and shuffled into smaller rooms that Lex knew didn't have windows. Interesting. Barring escape, but they obviously weren't who the people were interested in.

People like Bruce (and Alfred, who was steadfastly refusing to leave him), Talia Head, John Henry Irons and a few other leading lights of the industry were being collected elsewhere. Originally it had looked to be the company leaders -- but then he realized it was the brains they were after as Schuster of Rexian, who was commonly considered to be as big an idiot who could exist on the face of the earth and yet was filthy rich, was dragged away with the small fry. Eli Levin, his head of Research and Development was corralled with Bruce.

A monetary small fry, but mind wise... Lex hung tightly to his place, still and silent so as not to draw attention to himself. Technically, Alfred belonged with the 'brains' group -- and while they were still being sorted, there was no opportunity to attack and release anyone.

He did have to wonder what had happened to Superman though. No sign of him. Which meant either he had left or wasn't in a position to help. Neither of those options were very reassuring.

Bruce had always been better at patience than Lex had. His strength was the wild intuitive leap to a solution or the brilliant improvisation. Bruce planned. Between them both, he used to joke that they had all angles covered.

But separate... separate they had to just manage. Things had been easier when they'd been Batman and Nighthawk; it wasn't the same, and Bruce was in no position to provide Lex with plans while he waited for his brain to pop out a eureka moment.

Now all the small fry had been locked away, and the bigwigs were being herded off elsewhere. Towards the back. Ah, the interviewing rooms?

Looked to be that way. These were some very organized and high powered terrorists; some of the weaponry they had was very hi-tech, even by his and Bruce's standards.

There was a hiss and a crackle in his commlink.~ "Mr. Wayne, where is your partner Mr. Luthor?"~

Bruce's voice had just the right amount of bravado and concern. ~"I don't know. He took a call and said he would be right back. Look, you won't get away with this!"~

~"There's not a single reason why we won't Mr. Wayne. Now where is Mr. Luthor?"~

~"I told you I -"~

There was the crack of something hitting flesh and the murmured of fear and outrage were audible through the link.

He couldn't just turn himself in as Lex. Couldn't Even if he wanted to, he couldn't. Bruce would kill him. Bruce... was out of sight, and the showroom floor was perceptibly empty. Still, Lex didn't take his chances and decided to get as far as he could on the rafters. Get the dumb fucks out, maybe... or at least unlatch their doors.

It was hard to ignore the noises over the commlink as he stealthily picked his way across towards those smaller rooms. He wondered at there being no guards and had considered that to be a flaw until he dropped down silently and unlocked one of the doors.

And immediately a sensor engaged his full face mask filtration system automatically

Some form of sleeping gas or nerve toxin. They were breathing, shallowly but every single one of them was incapacitated and no trouble at all.

So he moved from door to door, picking the locks and letting the open doors serve as ventilation for them. Those were all the doors he'd watched people being led into, just four rooms, but they'd been packed in pretty tightly. In more convenient circumstances, he'd remove each person bodily -- but there wasn't time. Now that he was on the floor, he picked his way, mask filtration system still working, towards the interview rooms, looking out for guards.

It was pretty obvious where the fire power was concentrated, but as he slid around in the shadows he was disrupted by the Main exhibition image board suspended above him. It sprang suddenly to life with the image of an unfamiliar face. "Mr. Lex Luthor. We know you are in the building. I strongly suggest that you report to Interview room 3 before there are regrettable consequences. "

The camera shot moved outwards to picture a bloodied looking Bruce and Alfred, both with a gun pressed prominently against them. Bruce's eyes were blazing with a fury even visible through the televised image.

Lex only spent a moment in waffling before he twisted away and bolted -- he needed to change into his clothes, keep the suit under his clothes and... 

Intuition. Lex trusted it, moved like a shot, and was very shortly walking down the hallway towards interview room three.

"If you don't present yourself immediately, I am afraid the WayneLuthor butler and guardian will join his ward in being a cripple. I urge you to believe that we are completely serious about this."

"I surrender!" Lex lifted his hands over his head as he approached the guard at the door, fearless in the face of such weaponry.

The apparent leader of the terrorists turned. "Excellent. Now you are here, Mr. Luthor, we can get down to business. This building is sealed off by a plasma force field which as you know will most likely incinerate anyone or anything that attempts to cross it. Even Superman. There is no rescue coming, ladies and gentleman, no escape. You are here to do a very important task and if you complete it in a timely fashion, you will be released, and the others we are keeping will be administered the counteragent for the toxin we have sedated them with."

Lex slowly lowered his hands, anxiously looking towards Bruce and Alfred while wondering if he could edge over towards them, and processing through his mind everything that he could about their leader.

"I'm telling you this now because I want there to be no futile delaying tactics. We want a solution in twenty-four hours. Which is coincidentally the point where the nerve toxin enters into fatality zone. I am sure you are all astute enough to see the connection." He looked around at them all. "My fellows and I have a cause, and we have resources aplenty, but you can't buy genius that easily. So we have decided to steal it."

Bruce was glaring at him through bruised features and Alfred was resting a hand on his shoulder as if restraining him. Their once guardian looked straight across at him, meeting Lex's eyes.

Lex inclined his head faintly to Alfred, and turned to look at the man again. His eyes were sharp, inhumanly sharp, his hair black and white, a mustache that turned into a goatee like beard.

"Then can we get started?"

"As impatient as your reputation, Mr. Luthor. Take a seat, all of you, at the conference table here. Study the packs we have provided for each of you. You will find details of a concept design which could cripple..." he glanced at Bruce with a faint smile. "...world industry and the start of a blueprint design which unfortunately does not work. But within twenty-four hours, I expect a solution."

There was no compromise in his voice.

Lex, feigning compliance, kept his eyes on the man as he moved to sit down at the table along with everyone else -- in slow, wary motions. "You're a fool if you think any of us can agree on anything. Even with our lives at stake."

"He's right," Talia Head spoke up. "We don't share well at the best of times. What use am I in this hostage think tank? My specialty is in biologics. My presentation this year is to be on stimulated neural recombination, not on... some electronic thing!"

The man looked at her with amusement. "Therein lays the problem. Perhaps the processing required can only be provided by the reasoning capabilities of the human brain."

"A Bio-interface," Bruce said flatly, not even glancing at Lex. They had made a version of that with the Nighthawk remote suit. And even that could be doggedly temperamental sometimes much to Bruce's eternal annoyance.

"Correct, Mr. Wayne."

"My specialty is mechanics -- I'm not sure how I can help you," Lex offered stubbornly.

"There is a requirement for a delivery system," the man replied. "You will find the details in the packs. So. Do not waste any time. Begin now."

"I think I'm back in school," Lex muttered under his breath, hoping he was coming off obnoxiously while he reached forwards for the packet. "Just who _are_ you?"

"I believe I have been called Ra's al Ghul by many," the man replied, his eyes hooded like a raptor as he regarded them. "I suspect some of you recognize the name."

And funny how Lex suspected that none but he and Bruce would recognize the name, though they had only hurt his scheme and operations in the past, not the man himself. He lifted his head a little, starting to leaf through the pamphlet, and then murmured. "Demon's head. In Arabic. You insane people get more and more creative about naming yourselves every day, I tell you..."

"Oh believe me, the name was given to me as more of a description than an accolade," Ra's looked at them all. "My concern is an interface module to link this computer design to a biological operating system. The human brain in other words. What the computer links to is not something that you need to know, but suffice it to say the variables needed have to be controlled at exceptional reactions."

Definitely a bio interface, then. Lex kept reading, keeping an open mind to the havoc of the things this man wanted to accomplish -- all laid out in a tidy bulleted paper. "Are we getting supplies, or just pens and pencils?"

"For the moment pens and pencils and paper. I suggest you do not waste time. " He tapped a canister behind him. "Their antidote is waiting for your brainstorm to bear fruit. This is a deadline in its most literal incarnation."

The Demon's head was not above the proving his villainy with an innate tendency to melodrama.

* * *

Clark had been hit by lightning before but it was usually over and done with in the sharp shock of the strike and then gone. The force field on the other hand had held him in it, and had crisped him and his suit with a force that reminded him of those stupid facts that lightning could be something like ten times hotter than the surface of the sun. Sometimes facts like that needed experience to really make them undeniable in his mind, and he had that all right.

That was the first thing he was aware of as he woke up. The subtle scent of fried spandex, which wasn't attractive in itself and a dull ache that was fading as his body performed its usual miracle of survival and regeneration. 

He couldn't actively remember the last time that his clothes had been melted onto his body -- he was lucky that the force field hadn't been Kryptonite tainted, or he would've been wearing his suit permanently. 

The second thing he was aware of was that he was inside of the humming, warping plasma force field.

Okay. So, the force field was still up which meant whoever was responsible for this was still in control.

He pushed himself up stretching out the mild ache that lingered, grateful for his rapid recovery. He listened carefully searching for heartbeats and voices.

He picked up the multitude of slow heartbeats and frowned as he heard some of the conversation.

~"No look Wayne, you need something more responsive to deal with this electronic circuit."~

He didn't recognize that voice; a woman though.

~"Ms Head, you can compensate for that through the reflexes of the operator."~

Bruce Wayne obviously. He remember the picture and matched the voice to the publicity shot, imagining him frowning as he spoke.

~"Listen, the research I have been doing allows for there to be growth and repair of nerve bundles. You could theoretically grow a nerve bundle into the computer and plug in to the operator. Theoretically." ~

~"Theoretically, it could kill the operator."~ That sounded like Lex. 

~"Yes, and where would I find a backup with fine reflexes? Look what you've already managed with a little wire, Mr. Luthor. Separate genetics, but similar environments can produce fine specimens." ~

~"I could operate this within these parameters,"~ Bruce's voice sounded scornful. 

~"But you are.."~

~My lack of mobility has no impact on my hand eye coordination, Ms Head."~ Again he sounded impatient. 

~"Now, I believe, as we have given a significant portion of our brain power under duress there should be some show of good will in releasing some of the hostages." ~ Lex interrupted.

Hostages. They had hostages, and what sounded like a bunch of people doing.... something for them? Whoever 'them' was.

Clark had to act. Had to do something.

He rose up into the air, trying to get a bead on what was going on. If Lex were there, it was possible that he would seize any distraction he could make and run with it. He'd seen Batman do that before. The simplest distraction had resulted in a dazzling blur of violent energy. It wasn't that Clark couldn't have moved faster but Batman seemed to be able to make decisions in the same instant as acting.

He was reasonably confident that Batman would deal with anyone in that room after what he had seen. What he needed was to get that force field down. At the moment freeing the hostages meant nothing if they couldn't get away.

Probably best to make some loud bangs and crashes and generally distract them all with a few well placed heat vision blasts to scare them into hasty actions and create a needed diversion.

It didn't take Clark long to decide _what_ would serve as a good diversion if he blew it up or fired heat blasts at it -- the things that seemed to be generating the force fields.

He found the one nearest him and squinted his eyes at the solid looking object, heating it, despite the sudden and vigorous response from various guards. There was a fair amount of heat shielding on the box and he didn't get to blow it up immediately. Obviously they had been prepared for at least one of his abilities.

"Ra's, sir! Superman is inside the force field" one man gabbled into a communicator. "I repeat, he has penetrated the barrier!"

~"Set sequence nine into motion. We're moving out."~

Their leader seemed to stay calm, and then moment's later Clark could hear the sound of a body hitting the floor.

~"Master Lex!~" The cultured British tones weren't familiar but the concern in them was.

~"What the hell did you do that for?"~ Bruce Wayne sounded genuinely furious.

In the mean time, Clark heard a digitized transmission and noted with horror that the sizzling edge of the force field was creeping inwards.

~"To delay any stalling tactics. I've studied the two of you, I know what you're both capable of. And you..."~ There was another noise. ~"There we go."~

~"Master Bruce! Where are you taking him?" That English voice again. "I assure you sir, you will regret this."~

~"I sincerely doubt it. Talia, with me, keep an eye on Wayne." ~Ra's ordered curtly. "Ubu, eliminate these, the plasma dome will destroy the evidence and then follow us. Do not forget your pattern key. Move Talia, we have only a few minutes."~

~"Yes, Father"~

Shit! Clark whirled around hearing the sounds of them fleeing and then rather surprisingly the sounds of some fighting as well as gunfire even as he streaked towards that room.

Miniscule bits of his suit were falling off of him as he came to a halt outside of the room and ripped open the door. It wasn't _Lex_ that was putting up a fight, it was the Butler -- at least for the moment. Lex was groggy on the floor, but the moment the door opened he sprang to his feet to join and overtake 'Ubu'.

The bodyguard, as that was who he appeared to be, had a fanatical gleam in his eye as he saw Lex closing on him. With a decisive movement, he crushed the device that was the pattern key and smiled at the other man. "We shall die together. I will not fail Ra's al Ghul!"

"We... Will not die at all!" Lex snapped a sharp kick up at the man's jaw, and Clark heard his neck snapping -- ironically, just as the other scientists who'd been gathered seemed willing to enter the fray.

"Lex... Mr. Luthor," Clark blurred in effectively disarming and constraining others. "I need your assistance. We have little time."

He must look a state and he knew it, but he had to get moving before the dome sizzled its burning path to where the hostages were, to where they all were.

"There are hostages in the center, but I opened their doors for ventilation. Let's see what we can do." He didn't eye Clark even passingly -- just stepped up to take control. "You all, move into the center of the building. Alfred, come with us."

"Of course, Master Lex," Alfred bent and took the canister of antidote as he limped along to join them. 

"How fast is it moving? Look and tell me," Lex rattled off to Clark as they half-ran out of the room. He soon found his breath and broke into an easy run.

Clark barely seemed to move being there and back in a matter of seconds. "A centimeter a second," he reported. "But accelerating exponentially."

"Matter collapse," Lex mused aloud. "All right. We need to fail the systems or short out the force field. There's a magnet in the IdreTech stand that's big enough -- get it for me, and a battery. There should be one on the stage that's big enough."

Again the blur and Superman returned with both. "Here, what else do you need?" he asked knowing when to defer to someone else's judgment and when to keep to his own. His dad had always told him that was a great strength to know when someone else could do something and when it was down to you.

"A moment." Lex had grabbed a length of wire from somewhere, and started to wrap the magnet expertly. "When I hook this up, we're going to put this through the force field. "

"Master Lex, how exactly do you intend to accomplish that?" Alfred asked sounding a little suspicious. 

"Song and a prayer," Lex told him grimly as he hooked the wires up to the battery, and held the huge battery up to Superman. "It's now a strong electromagnet. It should disrupt the field enough for me to get through to the other side. On the outside of it, we can take out the generators. "

Clark frowned. "I think you are underestimating the strength of the field," he said. "The magnet may weaken it, but I believe you would still be... killed. "

"Then perhaps we should get close to the field and use the magnet and see how much effect it has on an inanimate object," Alfred supplied sensibly. "But with all haste Master Lex."

"There isn't time for haste. If the building isn't collapsing, which it isn't, I think we know what effect it has on an inanimate object." Lex started forwards in a run.

"Listen... Listen," Clark said. "I have some resistance to the field at full strength. If magnetism will disrupt the field if I can stay in there with it, won't that supercharge the magnet and create an actual hole?" 

"That _was_ the plan," Lex sniped sharply. "Supercharged magnet with a battery stronger than a car battery, a man who can fly..."

"You gave the impression you were going to try and go through," Clark grimaced unable to stop the uncertainty at the sharp words. "I defer to your experience Batman, but don't underestimate me."

"Oh, I'm still trying to go through." The edge was creeping into the building now, and Lex gave Clark a nod.

Clark turned and looked at Alfred, instinctively understanding that this man could make Lex Luthor listen where he could not. "Please make him wait," he asked. 

He received a slight nod in response as he took the improvised battery into his arms. "Okay."

He focused. He could do this.

He stepped purposefully into the plasma force field.

It was a shock, but not as much of a shock as it had been the last time. His clothes started to curl and burn off, the remnants of the cape melting down to liquid as the charge earthed itself into the magnet and distorted the field, creating a wavering hole near him a the main charge bent into his body. 

Lex seemed to be eyeing him, and the moment that the hole seemed to waver low enough, Lex ran towards it, flipping himself into an agile leap, curled tight as he got through the small space.

Clark could smell burning fabric, maybe skin even through the electric maelstrom and acrid ozone that imprisoned him.

He was stuck there though, the forces of the magnet making him part of its field even as he could see the wires overloading. It hurt in the moment to moment way that affected him. It wasn't that he didn't feel, it was more that his tolerances were higher. Plasma, more charged and hotter than the surface of the sun and he was standing in it gritting his teeth to stop from screaming out.

And just when he thought that he couldn't take it any more, the field fell away, dropping him cruelly to the floor.

He was literally smoking and the wire and magnet had melted in rivulets that were beading like drops of metallic perspiration against his exposed skin. All he could think of was that he couldn't look a fool in front of Lex -- Batman as he tried to push himself up.

"I'll deliver the antidote, Master Lex," Alfred said behind him. "Now the immediate danger is past."

"Uhn." That was a surprising tight-sounding agreement. "I need to... go after Bruce."

It was funny how Lex sounded so much more like Batman now to Clark's ears. Was that the real Lex, or the affected Lex?

"Of course, Master Lex -- if we knew where he was that would be our first priority," Alfred replied. "I suggest you take a moment with our ally here. This place will undoubtedly be swarming with the city's finest in moments. Perhaps he can spare you the necessity of questions and procedural tedium."

"Right. His idea." Lex was down on his hands and knees when Clark could finally pull himself together enough to look around. "Meet us at WayneLuthor Towers when the cops clear out."

"Understood, Master Lex." Alfred departed, still limping slightly.

Clark turned and looked at Lex. "You... listening to you all is like trying to understand a silent chess match blindfolded," he said taking a few deep breaths.

"The pieces would still click, and you'd still be able to hear the buzzers. Every piece has a noise due to its weight." Lex straightened up, back stiff, and grimaced. "They've turned off Bruce's earpiece."

"Which means they probably know about you and Bruce," Clark looked down at himself as bits of charred spandex fluttered to the ground. "You okay?"

"Little burnt." He stood up straight and ran his hands back through his hair. "Let's make sure everyone gets out of here."

Clark nodded. "I can hear that the hostages are waking up. And the SWAT teams are entering the building. Your... Alfred is directing people out of the exits."

"Great. I'll be... here. You should cover for your alter ego." He paused, eyeing Clark. "Go on. Wait at the Wayne Luthor Penthouse for me when it's over."

Clark nearly stumbled with surprise. "My alter ego?"

Movement was starting to edge towards them, but Lex just looked up at Clark with sharp, narrowed eyes. "Yeah. I'm a businessman with red hair -- do I _look_ like fucking Batman to you? I'm Lex Luthor. But if you want to cross reference, I can damn well guess the same. So go cover for yourself, Clark."

He was the first person to suspect Superman even had an alter ego. Like he didn't just float around aimlessly between disasters. He was too surprised to do anything much but nod and a few seconds later Clark Kent was rather unsteadily getting up, 'recovering' from exposure to nerve gas.

It was funny that Lex seemed almost relieved by the change, and dragged himself over towards the man. "You should find Lane. Unless she's already left."

"I can hear her. I'm willing to bet that everyone will be taken to the hospital. I'll slip out then," Clark replied glancing over at him. In someway he felt more naked now than he had when they were strangers having sex.

Because now they knew who they were. He knew who Lex was with the help of his super hearing, but... 

How did Lex guess who _he_ was?

"Good. I'll stay, talk, catch up." He straightened up, but still seemed to be moving with aching slowness.

"Then we'll find Bruce," Clark murmured as he turned away. "And Ra's al Ghul."

Lex was hurt, he could see that. But equally, he remembered Batman as being dismissive of pain so he didn't mention it.

It made him wonder how a mortal, a plain human could manage what he did.

Perhaps the obvious answer was that Lex Luthor was no ordinary plain human. He didn't mean that in terms that he must have some super power tucked up his sleeve but in terms that there was something about him. He knew he was affected by him, in a way that no one else had managed before. Even the first time he had met Batman there had been a certain something between them. A thrill that felt more dangerous and powerful, but that perhaps that had been because of his comparative inexperience.

It was a thought that he would have to work on before they met in WayneLuthor Towers in the not to distant future.

* * *

There was no way that things were going to turn out well. 

It was chewing at Lex -- what had happened, and what would happen. Bruce had been taken, Superman knew who he was, he'd _slept_ with Superman, he'd cheated on Bruce, and Bruce had been taken by a very quick minded madman.

Who'd taken the blueprints with him.

The only bright side was that since Bruce was missing, Lex had been able to beg off pretty quickly. A man was allowed not to talk to the press when his 'brother' and business partner was missing -- or at least able to tell them to fuck off without hurting his public relations.

That still left the problem that had been nagging at him since the debacle at the Exhibition Center. How had Bruce allowed himself to be taken? He had missed that part of things, being unconscious, but he could tell from Alfred's rather sparse description of events that he was concerned as well. Even in a wheelchair, people did not get the drop on Bruce Wayne. Especially in the Chair. The Chair was a mobile defense system in its own right. Bruce did not believe in dead weight, which went a long way to explaining his own difficulties with his condition and impatience.

Which meant that Bruce's disappearance... well, Bruce had to have gone along with it.

Lex wasn't sure what to think of that as he headed back to the tower. Alfred would be there, and possibly... Superman, too. Or Clark Kent. At least he was sure that the other man was unsettled by the 'unmasking' as Lex had been.

He had to admit, if it weren't for the fact that Superman had seemingly fried a contact lens, or whatever he was using, and underneath the piercing blue had been a very familiar warm green, he would never have connected Clark Kent with Superman. It had taken his trained eye to see that the man in the club in Gotham had been the same as the nerdish looking reporter who had tackled him at the Trade Show, and a freak accident to allow him the intuitive leap from reporter to Superman.

And Superman had fucked him.

And more amazingly he had walked out on him and given the guy some sort of inferiority complex.

Bruce had mentioned that the guy was an amateur, but... Superman, an alien, with an inferiority complex? He and Bruce would've laughed about it if Bruce hadn't gone with Ra's Al Ghul, a man that Lex was now going to have to research thoroughly. No point in wasting time wildly looking without research first.

He passed his card through the elevator's key lock, and waited for it to take him to the penthouse.

He contemplated as the elevator arrived and then bore him upwards. He had seen Bruce's intense interest in Talia Head's discussion as they bided their time trying to find the true plan behind what was going on. Would Bruce really risk everything for a chance in a million of some experimental procedure that might give him his legs back?

Speaking of inferiority complexes. Yes. Yes, he might.

After all, Bruce was a man of action. Bruce wanted to live his life again as much as Lex wanted Bruce to live his own life again. It was possible, after... Maybe it was egotistical of Lex to think that what he'd done would be impetus for that. Except that if Bruce had done that to him, he knew his reaction would've been sharp. And since Bruce let things simmer...

It had probably been the last straw for Bruce.

His 'brother' could bottle passion and intensity like no one he had ever known. He didn't want people to pity him and he couldn't somehow reconcile the fact that he was more to Lex than the sum of his achievements.

He was a damn hard man to love sometimes and that was always where he made his mistakes.

Lex let himself in to the penthouse even as Alfred nearly made it to the door, using a cane to assist him.

"Master Lex, apologies for my tardiness. Your guest is here. He knocked on the window a short time ago. I am serving him tea and coffee in the living room."

"At least he didn't knock the window _out_. Street clothes, or..." Lex gestured with his eyes as he closed and locked the door behind him.

"Normal attire, Master Lex," Alfred responded. "It is my personal opinion that he regards the formal attire as a necessity rather than a choice."

Alfred did have a way of picking things up that bordered on the uncanny sometimes.

"Huh." Lex had always liked how Alfred called their suits their 'formal attire'. "Thanks. You should rest, Alfred. I'll fill you in on what's going on..." He sighed, and filled in rather predictably, "...before I run off and do something stupid."

"Very wise, Master Lex," Alfred smiled a little. "I know that you find my lectures tedious to the point of being 'bottled as a world class sedative', as I believe you have commented in the past. I will work on the problem as well."

"I prefer your hands on teaching better." He patted Alfred's shoulder gently. At least he hadn't lost... Alfred to them, too. A bittersweet victory. "Anyway, I know your lectures by heart."

"I shall bear that in mind for the next time I have to deliver one and save myself the time." Alfred inclined his head. "Good luck Alexander."

He moved slowly away, still dignified even with a limp.

Only Alfred could bring dignity to a limp. Lex straightened up, wincing internally at the ache of his back, and walked into the 'living room' where Clark Kent was waiting.

He was dressed in jeans and a shirt and looked... young. Very young. Much younger than his alter ego with his bulging muscles and severe hairstyle. Now, his hair was soft and made him look like he was a teenager. Perhaps it wasn't so strange to imagine him as being a little insecure.

"Mr. Luthor, I hope you're okay?" Clark asked getting up politely. "I wasn't sure if they would take you to the hospital."

"I didn't let them. It wasn't in my best interests. You'll find that I... might have over-exaggerated my injury." Lex smiled as he walked towards Clark, gesturing for him to sit back down. He looked even better when he was dressed like that than he had that night at the club.

Hell.

"I couldn't see any fracture but..." Clark sat down. "This is... weird. Really weird. How did you know it was me?"

"Holistic details. You lost a contact lens and I put two and two together. Now how did you know that it was _me_?"

"Heartbeat. I'm... unusually sensitive to someone I've been close to," Clark admitted with a faint flush of color in his cheeks. "It's like a sound signature."

Sound signature. Lex immediately remembered the moment where Clark had slumped down on top of him, head on Lex's chest. Of course, he'd been listening to his heart then, maybe not for any reason, but...

"I hadn't thought of that." And the tiny part of his mind that represented Bruce-like thoughts was telling him to change his heartbeat. Or mask it. Something. Just for safety's sake. "What're the odds, huh?"

"Pretty remote," Clark replied tentatively. "So, um... you and Bruce? That was the thing. The reason?"

Obviously the younger man had been doing some thinking of his own.

"Reason for what?" Lex tilted his head faintly, waiting -- no sense in playing his hand when he and Clark had already accidentally peeked at each other's cards.

"For the not wanting to do what we did again. Not wanting to hurt him?" Clark asked suddenly very afraid his guess was completely off target.

Not wanting to hurt Bruce. Again. "I can see why you're a reporter," Lex replied, dodging the question faintly.

Clark shrugged. "I have certain advantages and he sounded really angry when they hit you. I found it hard to imagine that it was just brotherly concern. But I'm guessing the priority is to find him."

Fuck. Lex knew he was probably staring, and he tried to be cool and calm about it, but... he sat back, then ran a hand back through his hair as he nodded faintly. "Bruce left of his own free will, no matter how coerced he appeared. That wheelchair is a fortress and if he didn't want to be taken he could have stopped it. We need to find and stop Ra's Al Ghul."

"Wait, you're saying that Bruce allowed himself to be abducted?" Clark frowned, finding that hard to believe. "I heard him get hit, he wasn't even conscious. They were going to kill all of you."

Sure they were. They wouldn't have succeeded, not between Bruce, Alfred and himself. "My brot... Bruce exceeds me in ability," Lex insisted. "Crippled or not, trust me on this. We used to be and have been a team. His wheelchair has built in defense systems that he would've had to override to allow an abduction."

Perhaps understandably so, the thought of being helpless had obsessed Bruce to the point of overkill in his efforts to compensate.

"So why would he go off with this Ra's al Ghul character?" Clark asked, frowning a little as he tried to understand.

"Because there was a heavy implication that he might be able to walk again through some of their neuro technology. They want to create a direct bio interface." Which Bruce was already skilled at controlling in principal, but did Superman need to know that? No. "I'm sure that in light of many recent events, the temptation has to be high."

Clark flushed a little again. "Are you talking about the other night again?"

Any rekindled hope he had for him and Lex was fading rapidly. It was obvious to him that Lex Luthor was very much in love with Bruce Wayne. He'd have to be blind, deaf and terminally stupid not to see it in his eyes, hear it in the timbre of every word and recognize a blaze of love and worry in the other man's eyes. It was easy to see a light when you were in darkness yourself.

"Sort of. I'd have to be a fool to say it didn't. You... haven't been the first one. First one I regretted, but... that was only because I hurt you, and I hurt Bruce." Please, please don't let him bring up the sex again. "Bruce is, uh... a hard guy to love. We clash a lot, and it's been harder since the accident. You might understand a little better if... I told you that I'd never met you until that night in the club." There. If Kent was as smart as he seemed, he'd catch that one pretty quickly. A risk to take, but it could speed up what they were going to have to do. And if Clark turned into a threat, there was the 'ring' that Bruce promised would weaken him.

After all, once there had been Batman and Nighthawk. Now there was only Batman -- and as long as he didn't take the obvious bait, that Nighthawk was Bruce, then... the pieces were simple.

Clark blinked, his thoughts running around the maze offered to him and coming up with the correct answer after all. If Lex had not met him until the club, and he had met Batman before then... then Lex had to be the missing Nighthawk, and Bruce the original Batman. "Bruce was... Bruce was Batman when I met him in Metropolis? A few years ago?"

"Yes. And at the time, Bruce was flying solo -- I was laid up with a gunshot wound." And a blown out liver, but shit happened. "Now you understand why Bruce misses his legs so badly."

Clark nodded slowly. He could remember the way the man moved. He was always in the right place -- no matter that he didn't have superspeed or strength, he had poise and absolute position. He remembered that. It had been astonishing to watch.

"Okay. So Bruce was Batman and now you're Batman, but you were originally Nighthawk. Talia Head appears to be this Ra's al Ghul's daughter from the way they talked afterward," Clark said quietly. "I was listening the best I could. Alfred is obviously no ordinary butler, and this was some elaborate trap. If I didn't know better, I would have said that this Ra's al Ghul had some familiarity with Bruce at least. A lot of what was going on seemed personal?"

"Everything has gotten personal this last couple of weeks." Lex turned slightly, and picked up one of the coffee mugs there. "Alfred used to be an MI6. He's less of a butler and more of a father to us. Do you want some coffee? It's usually good."

"That would be good, thank you," Clark replied a little shaken by all the revelations.

Lex dropped two sugar cubes into his own cup, one in Clark's -- they were big sugar cubes, and if Clark wanted more he could add to taste -- and poured the soy milk in after it to turn dark coffee paler. "Ever feel like you've crossed into the twilight zone, but without the Rod Sterling warning?"

"My entire life since I was about fifteen has been like that," Clark replied evenly. "That was when I realized I wasn't just a bit different, I was completely different." He made an attempt at a smile.

"It's funny. Until I put two and two together, we weren't even sure that Superman had been raised as a human. But Clark Kent... clearly has been." Lex tilted his head a little as he took a sip of his coffee.

Clark nodded. "Yeah. Lois might dispute that though." He was aware he was giving away more information than he was getting. "So how did you and Bruce become the Dark Knights of Gotham?"

"Simultaneous epiphanies about what we wanted to do for our city." Lex's expression was grim as he vaguely said that. There was no way to sum up what it felt like to watch your parents gunned down in front of you, no way to express the way the memory haunted him, detachedly, in the back of his mind, the way that the sidewalk had almost seemed to soak up their blood.

"And it _is_ our city. Our holdings in Metropolis are the vestiges of my father's empire."

"It makes me wonder if all superheroes are territorial," Clark replied looking at him closely as if reading that what he was being told was not all of it.

"Are they?" Lex tilted his head faintly. "You seemed uncomfortable with Batman in your city."

Clark cleared his throat sipping the coffee. "Aside from the fact of our history I guess... Well, last time I just felt... outclassed. Completely. I guess Bruce has that sort of way about him." He frowned a little. He had assumed they were the same people because he had responded to the first Batman as well. Was it not the individual but something that he maybe he recognized in the role?

"He does." Lex was nursing his coffee quietly. "I'm not as good as him. A poor mimicry of what he can manage. Because of that, if he's working with Mr. 'Head', we... are fucked."

Clark was silent a moment. "Do you think he really would? I mean, he loves you doesn't he?" He couldn't imagine anyone not loving Lex if the man turned his full attention on them. Even the glimpse he'd experienced had him quietly smitten. How could Bruce not respond to that intensity Clark could see in Lex's eyes that was just for the other man?

"Things are just black and white for you, aren't they?" Lex asked, unable to stop himself from sounding curious and cynical. Love and having other wants weren't exactly exclusive of each other. "I love him. And I've been cheating on him regularly for over a year. So I'm not exactly following you."

Clark tried not to grimace. "I know about shades of gray. I know that.... I know that people can hurt you most of all when they love you, but I don't think he would betray a principle and you. You've ... you've had reason to be with other people, right?"

"Oh, sure -- If I care to justify it like that." Lex shrugged his shoulders. "I should've guessed that you'd have been the last straw for him. You're really gorgeous, and... you're one of us, a suit."

"But how did he know..." Clark paused as the information clicked. "The ear pieces right?"

"Always on. I've turned mine to receiving only in case he has something to say to me, but..." Nothing. Silence, because Bruce had nothing to share.

"I've really screwed things up for you, haven't I?" Clark said with a pensive expression and then made a decision. "Okay, how do we go about finding him and rescuing him... or stopping him?"

"I'm waiting for my brain to catch up with me -- then I'll do research on Ra's al Ghul and hope it hits me." Which he was sure wasn't the answer that Clark had been wanting -- he was probably waiting for some Batman-esque plan, but Lex just stood up with his coffee cup in hand.

"I'll be back -- need to get my laptop and some equipment."

"I brought my own," Clark replied. "I'll connect up while you get yours."

"Sure. You won't be able to get on my network since it's secure, but you can get on the general building network."

Lex moved quickly out of the room once he said that, intent on just... getting started. Getting into looking for the man who'd taken Bruce and Bruce by default.

"That's all I need," Clark replied. "I can get to the Daily Planet resources, at the least. They have access to a lot of databases."

"Oh, yeah. I'm sure they've got a whole profile on a man who calls himself Demon's Head. Look for Talia." Lex moved quickly out of the room once he said that, intent on just... getting started. Getting into looking for the man who'd taken Bruce and Bruce by default.

He should have known that Alfred would have had everything ready and waiting for him. Including their Oracle interface back to their central computer at the Batcave and Lex's delight and masterpiece. The only problem was, he wasn't feeling much delight in his masterpieces as he walked back into the living room with the pieces. No, he'd fucked up and here he was. Flying solo with another spandex wearing hero.

And the sudden part of his mind that wondered why Clark was helping at all.

Wasn't that part of the training? Ask yourself why someone is doing the things they do? Motivation, capability, weaknesses, strengths. The scenario didn't look good when stripped to its essentials. He could be harboring a grudge for the way Lex had left him. He could be working for the other side -- there was a matter of his mysterious alien agenda that Bruce had talked about. There had to be a reason.

Bruce would've --

Well, he wasn't Bruce. He was the man in Bruce's shadow, and he did things a little differently. Lex had the equipment in his arms as he walked back to the living room, and didn't wait to ask, "So, why are you helping me?"

Clark looked up, genuinely puzzled by the question. "...what?"

"Why're you here? Technically, the threat to Metropolis is over -- your city is safe. Why get re-involved?"

"Well I thought I was helping you. And Bruce was abducted," Clark replied. Carefully veiled responses were not part of his repertoire. "I should have stopped it from happening. I didn't."

He was open and... wide open. Lex guessed that if he pulled a little more, he could turn Clark inside out, he was so damn open. "You did your best, and you saved the people who attended the convention."

"No, I believe that was you," Clark corrected. "And in the Superhero game, if your best isn't good enough, then it's pretty terminal. But I expect you know that."

"All or nothing," Lex agreed as he sat back down. Laptop, transceiver box, booster, he was set for connecting back home. "When did you start?"

"Smallville. Metahuman capital of the world, unfortunately along with a tendency to instability as well," Clark answered. "I guess I was in my early teens when it first started off, but around fifteen when things took a turn for the loopy. I didn't know I was an alien until then."

"So you thought you were human until then," Lex surmised as he booted up his laptop. "Must've been a hell of a turning point."

"Well, yeah," Clark was already tapping away frowning. "That and the fact that the meteor shower that killed, transformed and pretty much created the majority of metahumans on Earth was directly connected to me, well... when you're fifteen and find that out... I guess I can safely say it messed with my head a little."

"Meta humans have been around for centuries," Lex scoffed. "Where do you think the legends of gods started? Olympians, Norse... Mere people who could do amazing things. And did. And then there are the people capable of amazing things who don't do anything at all."

"Mmm." He got a look for that comment -- a very speculative look. "Trust me, I saw Kryptonite cause some very strange effects. Deadly effects."

"Yes, we've researched a little into it. But many... Many metahumans have nothing to do with radiation. It has to do with the fantastic survival capabilities of the human body, the environmental adaptability. You should visit Arkham. It's an amazing place." 

Clark nodded. "We have a place similar around Metropolis. Belle Reeve." He was scanning documents as fast as they could load up on his computer and moving on. Talia Head, Ra's al Ghul... anything.

Lex was doing much the same on his own computer, slower and more soaking things in. "Demon's head, demon's head... He's an older man, so either this personality snap is recent, or he's underground. Talia's been around in the business world for years as a well known investor in a wide range of companies."

"Her company has awards for an unusual high environmental ethic, and actively supports ...a rather surprising amount of conservation charities," Clark added, glancing up. "I'm trying to work out how Talia came into power at Head Inc."

"You come to power by creating it yourself. The real question is where her money came from, which I don't know." Lex was busy selecting facial features and working on the profile program that his laptop had. Bit by bit, Ra's al Ghul was taking shape.

Clark didn't answer that immediately, sneaking a look up and over at Lex. He was ...beautiful. It was a word generally not used to describe men but he was. His mane of red hair, spilled down to his shoulders and flickered there against pale skin. His eyes like this were a deeper blue than before as he looked down and an intense need and passion filled him.

A need for Bruce.

He had been foolish to imagine that there could ever be anything between them. Nothing more than that one night of bitter sweetness. The best he could do, the only thing he could do would be to help him find the one he really wanted to be with.

"Talia is of mixed racial heritage, you can see it. So Ra's... What do you say he is, Clark? I'm leaning Persian."

"Somewhere around that yes. Sort of Arabic, or... desert. " Clark replied going with his instincts, no matter how undefined.

"Desert," Lex echoed, staring back at Clark. "Well, that's good and vague, but he did look weathered."

"Now you mention it, yes." Clark frowned and started referencing anything he could that mention the name Ra's al Ghul and the Demon's Head connected with common interests of Head, Inc.

"I'm starting to get a few hits on eco-terrorism stories. Nothing substantiated though."

"Mmm." Lex closed his eyes for a moment, and then started to run the feature compare part of their program. "That makes a certain amount of sense."

"In what way?" Clark asked still hunting around, aided by his abilities in the way that Lex was with his computer.

"Well, if Head, Inc is known for supporting environmental charities... It's like Sinn Fein and the IRA. Two parts of the same beast -- one legitimate, one hunted." Lex leaned back, looking at Clark while he let the computer run it.

"That's what I thought. Maybe the analogy goes further," Clark looked at him again. "Maybe they indulge in similar violent tactics. I mean they had some strong technology and firepower to pull that off. That plasma force field... I might have gotten through it eventually, but they were pretty secure in the knowledge they would have enough time. Sheer luck I was on the inside. And bad luck I was caught in it when it fired up."

"You survived," Lex pointed out, still looking back at Clark lazily. "Your suit didn't, but... you sort of looked good that way."

"Half fried and naked?" Clark smiled a little. "If only I'd known that the other night."

Lex laughed quietly, and looked back at the screen. "I meant the naked part, not the half-fried. You really... I don't know. I think I'll just shut up and keep looking."

"No, go on. Tell me. I really what?" Clark asked. "Freak you out? Suck? What?"

Something. Lex closed his eyes faintly, then just shook his head. "No, you're still attractive. And you shouldn't be, I shouldn't... I can't even seem to concentrate on what I'm supposed to be doing."

"I think I've already made it clear that I find you really... well, attractive. " Clark was watching him. "But, I don't want to come between you and Bruce. Well, more between you than I have already. He's a very attractive man as well, and clever..."

"You'd do him in a New York minute if you could, wouldn't you?" Lex asked, laughing to himself. God, it was absurd, but it was also the mental rest that he needed if he wanted all the pieces to fit together.

"Well, I'd be lying if I said that I didn't feel something when we first met. A different something, but it was there nonetheless," Clark replied. "It is not an easily broached topic among superheroes. There are all the issues about spandex, rubber and access."

"Bruce liked the suit rubber -- I prefer the wired bodysuit myself." Lex's mouth twitched. "There's something kinky about rubber, I've always said that."

"Definitely smacks of fetishism," Clark agreed, inordinately pleased to see even a hint of humor. "So says the spandex wearing wonder here, mind you."

"I should have guessed that your primary color scheme and your boots pointed to your sexuality." Lex opened up a file to see what results he'd gotten, and choked on a sound -- Fidel Castro had to be a red herring. The program definitely needed to be tweaked.

"Primary colors are manly you know. Now lavender... if I had a lavender suit, that would be different," Clark appeared to be hard at work even as he said that.

"Don't knock purple. That's a traditional comic book color... damn. You want a laugh? My program needs to be tweaked. It's making facial matches, and it picked up Fidel Castro. Must've been the beard."

Clark laughed. "Of course if he was a long-lived eco-terrorist, he might have been Fidel Castro," he suggested flippantly.

"No, only opportunistic politicians live that lo..." Lex stopped as he felt something inside of his brain slide into place, and stopped the search to reprocess it. "Long-lived. We've got a book in the library that mentioned a trickster 'Ghoul' -- a demon in middle eastern tradition, the word borrowed by crusaders when they brought it back with them -- who in the tradition of 1001 nights dogged the Crusaders. And then there was a 'Ghoul' who fought in China in the second world war, on the allies side. He was a foreigner who tried to revitalize the underground movement..."

"Sounds like you are on to something. Perhaps he is a meta," Clark said seriously. "Fighting for causes... fanatically. The Crusaders angle does fit our speculations and people like... territory, as we said before."

"Starting in your homeland and expanding the cause outward?" Lex tilted his head as he brought the picture up again. "But how can a man live over a thousand years?"

"He may not be human. He might be a Metahuman, he might have access to magic, he might have access to sufficiently advanced artifacts," Clark reeled off. "I know for a fact there were Kryptonian artifacts around on Earth before I ended up here."

"Then those are possibilities." Lex closed his eyes for a moment, nodding to himself. "We need to see if there's an area of activity for his group, or people he's been associated with."

"You trawl your database and I'll trawl mine," Clark replied bending to set to work.

The searching seemed endless despite the fact that between the two of them they covered a vast amount of data. Clark like a supercomputer himself and Lex with his secret access to a complex series of databases and algorithmic processes.

Eventually, Alfred had come in and practically demanded that they sleep and Clark seemed more inclined to mind his elders than Lex was.

Somewhere in the process while running a series of searches, Clark put his head down and stretched out on the couch and... fell asleep.

Just like that. Just... trusting like that.

Like a kid, or an old friend, or a calm dog. It confused Lex as he sat there, leaning forwards towards his own laptop on the coffee table. Clark had just fallen asleep, with his laptop sitting on his chest. The least that Lex owed him was to get up, close it, and set it somewhere that it wouldn't fall to its doom.

Why did Clark trust him?

For so long, it had just been him, Bruce, and Alfred. That was all the trust in the world. No one in business trusted like this. None of their fellows at Excelsior had been like this.

There was something alien about Clark and it wasn't the way he looked, or his powers.

It was... in him. Genetic, Lex wanted to guess flippantly, because he _was_ an alien. But... Lex twisted, set the laptop down beside his own, and returned to staring down at Clark. 

If he were a good host, he would've awakened him and forced him to sleep in a bed. It was what Alfred would do. But Lex wasn't much of a host, so he just looked Clark over again. He loved Bruce, but there was some strange immediate connection he felt with Clark, a kinship that he'd only felt with Bruce until then.

That was strange, because Bruce was different to what he knew of Clark. Clark was open, bright, a creature of light. Bruce was private, secretive, dark and mysterious. When he looked at Clark he felt... something. Something he immediately felt guilty for feeling.

He was spoken for. He loved Bruce. He couldn't _leave_ Bruce, not after years and years. Just because Bruce couldn't walk, because he didn't, they didn't, fuck anymore. 

But Clark struck him as the other side of Bruce. A lighter Bruce, the other side of the coin. The two of them had probably gotten along fine, or would've, and there Lex was. Stuck in the middle, left feeling once more that he didn't really belong where he was. Somewhere between Superman and the _real_ Batman, a gray if Clark was white and Bruce was black.

"Nighthawks are just dumb puffy little birds, anyway," Lex sighed. There, his own voice broke himself out of his reverie. He needed to leave and let Clark sleep himself out on the sofa.

"But very cute," Clark's voice mumbled as an eye cracked open.

Lex jerked, taking a sharp back step before he muttered, "Jesus, you're supposed to be sleeping."

"I was," Clark replied. "But I sleep light." He gave a small laugh. "Unless I'm at home, I rarely sleep deeply otherwise I might start floating. You were watching me?"

"Mmm. I do that." Unapologetically, too. Lex casually slipped his hands into his coat pockets. "You should sleep in a real bed. My brain's shut down, and a few more hours of head start for Ra's can't make things much worse."

"You should sleep, too," Clark reminded him. "Come at it fresh. You look unsettled."

"It happens. I rely on intuition, and it's not giving me anything right now. Except that we have a living myth on our hands." Lex jerked his head slightly. "I'm going to leave my comp running, see if it can process out any old historical or literary references to Ra's Al Ghul or Demon's Head."

"We've got somewhere to start. An area at least. Worse comes to worst, we'll go and I'll cover every inch of it," Clark offered. "Are you going to rest?"

"Stranger things have happened." Lex lifted his eyebrows. "Follow me, I'll get you settled in. Do you need an alibi for your workplace for tomorrow?"

"I'll have a bad reaction to that nerve gas. They said it might be possible," Clark replied as he got up.

Lex lingered, watching him. "And they won't drop by to check up on you?"

Clark shook his head. "No." His tone was a little short. "There are stories to be written."

Lex paused as he edged into the hallway, invitation in his posture. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Friends get a little scarce when they feel they can't rely on you to be there for 'important' things. Friend things. Anonymously saving their life doesn't actually count," Clark said as lightly as he could as he follow. "You probably know a little about that."

"It's been just Bruce and me for as long as I can really remember," Lex drawled once Clark had caught up with him. "We don't make friends. We make enemies, adversaries, and acquaintances that might be enemies in disguise. Bruce hasn't always had some magical power to be there for 'important' things, but he's always there to help me clean up my mess."

Except for this time.

"It must be good to have someone," Clark replied seriously. "Someone like that."

"Your childhood friends shouldn't have abandoned you. Things started then could be forever." Lex kept walking down the hallway, heading for the 'guest' room. 

"Mm. Sometimes the secret is too much for even a good friend to handle." Clark said, sounding tired. "Humans don't take well to discovering they have an alien as a friend. Or a potential boyfriend. But at least it gave them something in common."

"What? Freaked out?" Lex cocked his head as he pushed open a door for Clark. "Humans don't take well to finding out someone's a meta. Or a different religion. Or a different sexuality. People are funny that way, aren't they?"

"Well, whatever it was, they bonded enough to get married a couple of years ago," Clark shrugged. "It's funny, but I always thought Pete wanted Chloe when all along it was Lana. I should never have told her. She looked at me as if I was... ah, well. That was years ago." He stepped inside. "Nice bed."

"It might be dusty. We don't come here often." Lex lingered in the doorway, watching Clark intently still. "I'd apologize for the ignorance of others again, Clark, but... Doesn't fix anything. If it helps, I think you're a nice guy."

Clark looked at the bed. "You know it's a big bed," he suggested tentatively, hating himself for wanting just the company so much especially when he knew it was wrong.

"So, it's not just me?" Lex took a step forwards, letting the door half close -- in a moment he'd decide whether to close it, or just walk away.

"No, not just you," Clark murmured. "It... we don't have to do anything just... okay, stupid idea. Don't worry about it."

He paused, closed the door behind him. "I'm not worried. I just can't make you any promises."

"I don't expect any," Clark replied. "Just comfort right? Just something that friends would do."

"Sure." Lex's mouth curled into a smile as he started towards Clark. "You're really not a freak, Clark, and there's no reason for you to have insecurity issues. You could be a model."

Clark laughed. "Clark Kent reporter on the other hand... is definitely not model material." He slipped off his shirt easily enough. "I'm glad I wore my boxers today."

"And here I am overdressed," Lex laughed as he unbuttoned his shirt. The suit was still on, tight to his skin.

Clark slipped off his shoes, socks and pants. "Very over dressed."

"I'm used to having to change at a moment's notice," Lex grimaced as he shimmied out of his shoes and pants.

"Funny, that. Me, too." Clark flicked back the covers and slipped in, looking at Lex with undisguised admiration.

Lex reached back behind him with a faint wince, unfastening himself quickly. "I don't have superspeed."

"But you do heal quickly don't you?" Clark said casually, still looking at him with wide guileless green eyes.

"Accidental, chemically induced Meta-state," Lex confirmed clinically, bending over smoothly to peel himself out of the suit.

"Useful for you I would think, as Batman," Clark said giving a sudden intake of breath as Lex bent over and the wanting swept over him again. Maybe this wasn't going to be so easy after all.

"My br-- Bruce calls it a crutch." Lex exhaled as he kicked the suit carefully away. "It's a tension point."

"Mm. I've had people tell me that about my abilities before as well," Clark shifted over pointedly "But then, isn't that a little like his own loss of mobility? The Bruce I saw in action had to be hyper kinesthetic or something. That's as much an ability as your healing or my... assorted alieness."

"Well... I have to agree with you on that, Clark, but Bruce and I have always fought like brothers over... things like that. His is from training, mine a freak accident, so mine's a crutch. If I had studied harder in Tibet, and both started and mastered my ability _there_ , it would've been okay."

"You could study all your life Lex and not always take to something," Clark replied. "It's not a crutch, it's something to be utilized."

"When it comes to you naturally, it's not a choice whether you utilize it or not." 

"Yeah, I know. I've had some embarrassing incidents when my powers kicked in," Clark laughed a little and settled back in the bed. It was nice to feel this way even under such dire circumstances. To talk to someone who understood what it was about and not have to hide who he was. He felt almost dizzy with the relief of not having to keep a secret.

"I gave blood a couple of years ago, and the lady couldn't get the needle back _out_ without a pair of pliers," Lex grinned. He started to edge towards the bed casually, walking smoothly. "That's embarrassing."

"I have to pretend to be scared of needles. They mush against the skin," Clark replied. "That must have hurt?"

"No more than I think an ear piercing would be." Lex pulled back the sheets on one side, smiling at Clark. "Mush, huh?"

"Mm. Them and bullets can splash sometimes if they're high powered enough. Which is weird," Clark looked at him leaning up on one elbow. "It's not the reaction you would get if you just hit something resistant. I had an axe shatter on me once when I was a kid. Metal doesn't shatter except under extraordinary stress."

"I bet if I put sliver of your skin under an analyzer, you'd read as super-dense. That's the sort of stress that could shatter metal." It was a strange conversation to have while he was getting into bed with the other man, but given the rush they'd been in before...

"Maybe you could try that sometime. I don't really know that much about how I do what I can do. Sunlight is involved." Clark knew he shouldn't appear so happy, but he just was. Having someone -- no, more specifically Lex -- so close was enough to make him nearly buzz with happiness.

Lex moved in closer, fingers settling first on Clark's skin on the top of his shoulder. "Since we decided to start over... maybe we should start slowly, too."

"I meant what I said. I don't want to ruin anything," Clark murmured.

"Bruce and I are pretty messed up, together or apart," Lex informed Clark as he shifted closer, slowly -- the mattress gave a faint squeak from the motions. "You're not going to ruin anything that we can't do quicker on our own."

Clark automatically reached out to drape an arm over him. "Because of the accident? Or... something else?"

"Because we're us, Clark. Simple as that. Bruce is planning and preplanning and logical ice. I'm the opposite." God that arm felt good. Lex moved closer, soaking in the feeling of raw heat that emanated from the other man.

"But you still love him." It was a statement more than a question and said quietly.

"Have since we were kids." And he was going to find Bruce, guilty or not, and bring him home. He was going to do right for Bruce. Maybe even hide his involvement in what was going on, if he could.

"Then we'll do what we can to get him back to you," Clark murmured softly. He'd move heaven and earth to make things right for Lex, he realized that. He kept feeling the moments of silence luring him to say those astonishing words of 'I love you' no matter how ridiculous it was to feel that way after one night. His Mom had taught him that sometimes loving someone meant giving up everything for them. Like she had for Jonathan. Left her family, her home, everything she knew because it was right and love was worth it. 

No reason why they shouldn't apply when it wasn't him on the receiving end.

"Or stop him," Lex murmured grimly.

It just wasn't fair that in the list of things to give up for love, it might just be that what Clark _wanted_ was what he'd need to give up.

But he also knew being forced to choose was the worst thing and he wouldn't do that either. "Or stop him. You have a resource he doesn't. Me," Clark reassured him pulling him closer. "Just as well you spotted me in Gotham huh?"

"It is. Just as well that you were in the area that night." Strange, too, but Lex could understand a man straying out of his territory if he wanted to safely have sex without getting put at risk for recognition.

"It's never worked before," Clark murmured. "I've never..." He shrugged slightly. "Never found anyone that I was so attracted to."

"Murphy's law that it was me?" Lex joked softly. A shift of his head, and he was so close to kissing Clark. Just a little motion.

There it was again. A small silence begging to be filled with a declaration of love. It would be natural to say it then, easy and... very wrong.

He didn't lean forward into taking that opening, he did exactly what was promised. A gentle stroke of comfort as if through friendship.

"Can I kiss you?" Lex asked after a moment.

"Only if it isn't something you'll regret," Clark answered trying to dampen his own response. That was like trying to turn back the tide.

"I don't have many regrets in my life." Lex leaned into Clark, just the faint motion it took for lips to meet lips in a soft brush. 

Clark, on the other hand, did. And one of them was that he wasn't strong enough to resist that touch, that kiss, even though he knew he should. It was electric in its softness, and all his fine thoughts and noble intentions were drowned out by the roar in his blood as he kissed back with more eagerness.

It was a natural progression -- two naked men in bed together, both with sex on their minds and a near death experience just hours behind them. Lex fell prey to an easy spike of adrenaline, and shifted closer against Clark, trying to get into a good position for... something.

Clark wasn't consciously moving in any position, he just wanted to keep on being there with him, kissing, tasting, touching... Oh god, he was so easily taken into his sphere of influence.

The worst part was that Lex didn't even have any pointed goals. It just felt good, the way Clark reacted so strongly to him, and it made Lex react back. The way that steel-hard skin felt smooth beneath his fingers, hot and occasionally shivering. Clark's stomach trembled when Lex pressed his thigh up against Clark's erection, rubbing. "Yeah..."

There was a knock at the door. "Master Lex? There's been a news broadcast. I believe you need to see it immediately."

Alfred had the timing of a demon or angel. He'd never worked it out exactly.

"Coming!" It was weirdly gasped, and of course Alfred had easily located Lex in the guest bedroom. "Fuck, sorry, Clark, we..."

"Have work to do, I know." Clark pulled away reluctantly. "I'm sure Alfred wouldn't trouble you for anything less that something vital."

"You'd be amazed. Sixth sense." Lex levered himself to his feet, and slipped away from the bed, picking up his clothes quickly.

Hell was dressing over a hardon.

"May I come with you?" Clark asked a moment. If Alfred had been doing it to break them up then perhaps he wasn't meant to follow him.

"Of course -- I want your help, Clark. You can look at things with a fresh point of view." The point of view Clark was getting just then was a sexy one. Lex was bent in half as he pulled his boxers on, and then bent again to pull his pants up and fasten them. "All right."

There was a blur and Clark had caught up with him. "Right. Lets see what this news broadcast is all about."

Lex was buttoning his shirt up as he pulled open the door. "I'm sure it's important."

Clark nodded and exited the room, finding where Alfred was easily. The man was looking at CNN on one of the obscenely large television screens. 

"It will be repeated shortly sir," Alfred said not turning to look to see if Lex was actually there or not. "It's been repeating every ten minutes since the first broadcast."

"Care to tell us what it is?" Lex asked as he walked over to Alfred.

"A broadcast that seemed to jam and intercept signals over the world and insert a terrorist warning as to how the world has forty-eight hours to repent of its sins before it is to be cleansed of the worst 'diseased' sections of humanity." Alfred replied gravely. "Reference is made to the events in Metropolis as an object lesson on how even the very rich are powerless against them. Reference is also made to... an unexpected ally."

Lex sucked in a breath, muscles going tight. "I don't believe this..."

"It could be propaganda," Clark said immediately. "Right? I mean he wouldn't. Or it could be someone else."

Alfred glanced across at Lex and said, "Perhaps that is the case, Master Kent."

"Sure." Lex was shaking his head, though. "I'm going to load up Oracle and see if we can pinpoint a broadcast point."

"Hurry, Master Lex, the broadcast will begin again in two minutes," Alfred warned him.

Lex ran out of the room on that prompting, and then ran back with his laptop and the equipment. It took him only a moment to hook it up to their satellite box, ready and waiting.

Clark sat down listening intently.

"Here we go." Alfred stated as the edge of the reports started to fuzz out as the signal was hijacked.

The face was unmistakable. It was definitely the same man. Ra's al Ghul displaying his arrogant features to the entire world.

~"Citizens of the Earth -- No, that is too much a compliment. Parasites of the Earth, consider this due warning. For centuries, you have plundered the bounty of this world indiscriminately. Your population has swelled and exceeded all bounds and still you do not develop the wisdom to curtail your breeding, your pillaging of natural resources and your utter indifference to the forces of nature.

~"Finally the balance will be restored. Due to some unexpected allies, I now have the means to return the earth to the way it should be. I have the ability to reach and make the richest men of the world to do my bidding, to thwart their most powerful defenders. Believe me... for the majority of you the next forty-eight hours will be your last alive so I encourage you to make peace with whatever god deigns to notice you. The earth will endure and thrive relieved of your weight and nature once again will triumph."~

And then it slowly blurred away into news reports that were urgently discussing what was going on. "--here it was again, as you can see, the location of the transmission is still unknown..."

"Got anything?" Clark replied immediately. "I could hear multiple points of origin so I'm guessing it was rerouted through satellites?"

"I've got it six back... seven... seven, eight back, beamed out from Libya." Lex looked up at Clark with sharp eyes as the long awaited inspiration blazed in his mind. "Did you ever hear the story of the plane 'Lady Be Good'?"

"Not that I recall," Clark looked at him expectantly.

"During World War II, a B-24D bomber named 'Lady Be Good' overshot the allied air base after a bombing run to Naples. At night, the shore and the desert melded seamlessly, and he missed where one became another -- ended up landing in the desert. The survivors were heartened to see jeep tracks on the ground, and followed them, thinking they were near their base. They died, of course, due to dehydration and starvation. The plane was located 440 miles south of the base in 1958 on a gravel plain. The plane's parts were still functioning -- and the tracks that they had followed were still there. It hadn't rained, in all of those years." Lex was still looking at the screen as he talked.

"The Sahara is very, very dry."

"Mm. And a logical place to start looking hmm?" Clark responded. "Plenty of nothingness to get lost in. It's expanded a lot on the last few centuries too."

"Speaking of centuries. The results on the other search turned up a picture of the world war two era 'Ghoul' I mentioned -- it's grainy, but clearly the same man as we just saw on the broadcast. Same age, too." Lex was typing fast, trying to narrow down the coordinates as much as possible.

"Right. He must be confident to be making broadcasts." Clark frowned. "There must be some reason for the delay. This Ra's does not strike me as the type to be merciful."

"Technical glitches? There's nothing merciful in causing widespread panic, is there, Clark? I'd give it another couple of hours before looting starts."

"There is that, but..." Clark was still looking concerned. "You were there for the technical discussions. What did they appear to be pointing towards?"

"Shutting down the world," Lex answered wryly.

"Yeah, but how? I mean, it's not as easy as all that. People keep trying and half the time the self appointed heroes don't even have to do anything. The plan blows up on them." Clark sat on the arm of the couch. "What was the deal with biointerfacing? I could hear that."

Clark, it seemed had heard a great deal during their encounter.

"It..." Lex paused as he printed out the coordinates. "The mechanisms he planned need a fine touch to guide them. You saw what he was doing with plasma."

"But what mechanisms doing what needed the fine touch?" Clark asked. "Did he tell you that?

"It... It's a knot singularity. A complex version of what people think of as a black hole. It only exists in theory, but... My contribution was some of the mechanics of the resonators that would guide it. If it works, we're doomed and if he does it wrong, I, uh, hate to say it, but we're _very_ doomed."

"This is not reassuring me, Lex. Doomed and Very doomed aren't options I like to deal in," Clark replied. "You think they really have one of these... knot things?"

"I think that Ra's is intelligent enough, and has been _alive_ enough, and has the technology to do it. If... If Bruce has gone over... we have a fine tuned, bioguided system. He uses one on a regular basis that may be close enough to transfer his expertise. He's more primed for the task than probably any human on earth." Lex stood up, and closed down the oracle system. "Study these coordinates. I'm going to suit up, and you should do the same."

Clark nodded, still troubled at the thought of it. He didn't know that much about quantum physics but he did know enough to know that they were talking about some sort of black hole type affair. "Do you want me to meet you there?"

"At these coordinates?" Lex lifted an eyebrow. "If I'm lucky I can be there in seven hours. Ish."

"In which case do you want a lift?" Clark asked politely.

"I'd appreciate it," Lex admitted as he edged to leave the room. "I'll be back in a few -- Alfred, is the equipment...?"

"It is ready Master Lex," Alfred said quietly having followed his exchange. "I will have the jet brought in remotely as you change. Your suit is fully equipped."

"Look, I'll meet you outside," Clark said. "I'd best set my cover story in motion. I'll see you out there."

He blurred and was gone in a flash of speed leaving Lex alone with Alfred.

"Alexander..." Alfred pressed a few buttons that would activate the Batplane. "Perhaps you need to give this some more thought."

"Forty-eight hours, Alfred. What other choice do we have?"

"Master Bruce knows how you react. It is possible that..." Alfred looked tired and old suddenly. "Master Lex, dire though this situation is, I do not want to be in a position to be the only one left standing. Whether willingly or not, it is entirely possibly that Ra's al Ghul is ready for you and your new ally."

"I'm not sure what Bruce is up to, but..." Lex didn't want to think the worst. Even if he had to, he didn't want to think that his 'brother', his lover, would... after everything they'd been through. Not destroy the human race. Not destroy _Gotham_.

Not even if it would put an end to crime, period. He wouldn't kill innocents. "We still have the ring, don't we? If... Bruce would've taken it somehow."

Alfred nodded. "Master Lex, need I remind you that Master Bruce has not scrupled to use either of us in his plans before without our knowledge or consent? I am concerned that in his current state he might go too far in whatever scheme he has come up with. His perspective recently has been... lacking."

"I know." His own fault for not trying harder, doing better, to ground the other man. Maybe his own perspective was falling apart. "Help me suit up quickly, so we can go, Alfred. Hopefully I'll see you again when this is all finished."

"Mm. It will be difficult to serve breakfast to you if you are not there, Master Lex," Alfred replied. "And young Master Clark will evidently do everything in his considerable power to ensure that you will return, so I'll keep the waffle maker primed."

Lex almost said something else, but just clapped Alfred's shoulder and uttered, "Thanks."

* * *

Towing the Batplane didn't slow him down much. It was bulky, awkward but easy to deal with and oddly enough once they were in the area Lex had deduced, finding Ra's al Ghul's hidden fortress was not hard. If only because there was another plasma force field sitting up against the cliffs that pumped out a lot of energy that Lex's instruments picked up immediately.

The pair of them stood in the heat of the Sahara looking at the shimmering field

"Well that was a little too easy," Clark commented. "Another one of these... damn force fields, though."

The fact that there was another force field was probably the reason why they felt confident in nigh on flaunting their position. Clark wasn't sure if there was another being on Earth that could get through it in the forty-eight hour time limit.

Lex looked like he was very possibly going to overheat if they stood out there in the sucking dry for much longer. "We'll break it the same way we broke it last time."

"I'm going to have a look at flame retarding this spandex," Clark replied a little dryly. "I won't be much good to you for a while afterwards."

"Let's think this one out, then. Can't you just... hold it out into the field?" Lex offered. "Instead of putting your whole body into it. We can't afford for one of us to be debilitated."

"Lex, in it or out of it, the effects are pretty much the same," Clark replied. "It will earth itself through me... it's like lightning. A lot of lightning striking continuously. Touch it with one finger and the effect is the same."

""I'll remember it," Lex muttered as he stepped backwards. "I'll get the equipment, then watch your back so you can come around."

"It didn't take so long last time, it's just... they seemed to know when I did it." Clark turned watching him. "Hopefully they won't expect us. Not so soon at least."

"They'll know when the force field goes down," Lex as Batman reminded as he hauled two more contained pieces of equipment out of the Batplane. It was more sophisticated than the other time, but essentially the same thing as the last time.

"Then I hope you're ready for them. Don't worry about leaving me in the line of fire," Clark said as he gathered the magnet together. "They'll bounce off of me. Just... take care, Lex, please."

He dreaded not being able to help for those few minutes when he knew it would be dangerous.

"All right. I'm ready..." Lex held out the setup to Clark, Batman to Superman, and waited.

Curtly, professionally, Clark took it and taking a deep breath stepped into the lightning storm of the plasma force field, gritting his teeth against the energy surge as the magnet super charged and created a safe passage for Lex. Somewhere there was going to be alarms and sirens but all he could hear was the roar of lightning through him.

And then nothing and the oddest ebbing surge of pain seeped into his consciousness, mingling with the lightning sharp pain. Someone yelled, the sounds of a scuffle, and a gunshot.

Somehow, he deduced that things hadn't exactly gone to plan. The force field shut down and he collapsed to his knees. 

And then as a familiar nauseated feeling swept over him and more pain, even that stability was robbed from him. It had been a while but Kryptonite exposure was unmistakable as his blood tried to boil in his veins.

His response was essentially a choking noise as he tried to open his eyes and an unwelcome sight swam into vague focus.

"Well, well... Wayne was correct after all. How interesting." Ra's al Ghul looked at the two subdued men.

"I told you you could trust him, Father," Talia Head replied. "What are you going to do with them?"

"Put them to use, of course. I'm not a man to waste good talent. A visitor from another planet... I'm sure that with time I can tame him. And 'Batman'... how unlikely, don't you feel?"

"Of course, Father. He was talented at the brainstorming session however," Talia looked down at the sprawled men. "I'll have them confined appropriately. You have your bio interface surgery to undergo now Br -- Wayne has survived the procedure and proven it workable on the simulator. You should save your strength for that."

"I will. See that they're put away, and I will deal with them after our plan is complete. And we will see if Wayne is right about his brother's healing ability."

Talia gave a few curt orders even as she took a necklace from around her own neck and threaded the small lead container and Kryptonite ring claimed from Lex's utility belt onto it and put it around Superman's neck. "There, I'll close it up a little. I don't want you to die just yet. Take them both to one of the Holding cells. Maximum security restraints on them both."

* * *

He woke up slowly, processing what he could about the environment before he did anything rash like... moving. The room was cool, musty in a sandy dry sort of way. He lolled his head, and felt his hair pressing up against the wall. Unmasked, too. Nice of them. Lex tried to move his hands, and quickly realized that they were encased in padding. A clink...

Metal on stone. Encased in padding that was covered in metal.

"Fuck."

He opened his eyes, finding the splash of color over to his right that had to be Superman. Someone had gone a little overboard on chains for him but it wasn't immediately obvious whether such extremes were necessary. Clark was slumped forward unmoving.

Maybe, Clark was dead. Lex fell silent, holding his own breath for a moment so he could listen to see if the other man was breathing.

Using his training he could spot the rise and fall of the chest and the faint sounds on inhalation and exhalation. He was alive, but he could see, even in the dim light a strange green glow around his neck and chest.

Green like that ring Bruce had given him, that had still been tucked away into his utility belt. Which they had taken from him, as a second glance proved. Very nice.

And somewhere from the sharp pain in his own side Lex felt that he was wounded, the legacy of a carefully aimed impact that had greeted him the moment he had somersaulted through the hole in the plasma field. "Clark..."

There was no immediate response aside from what appeared to be a concerted effort to lift his head. It took a long time, but eventually Clark's head raised a little. His voice was rough and faint. "Lex... you.... you okay?"

"Shot. Or stabbed, not... sure. You?" Lex's head lolled, but he kept Clark's face in focus.

"Kryptonite. Hurts. Weak as.. kitten." There was an attempt at a smile but he seemed to gain more focus at the sound of Lex's voice. "Hurt badly?"

"Not much. I noticed the full arm cuffs before the wound." He clinked them against the wall again, just testing. "They're not messing around, are they?"

"No," Clark tilted his head back against the wall. "They were ready for us."

That much was very obvious. Lex ambushed before he even managed to land from his acrobatics through the air. Clark trapped immobile in the plasma field so he could not evade the Kryptonite they retrieved from Lex. Neat. Effective. And definitely pre-planned.

"Trap," Lex sighed tightly. "He trapped us."

"Bruce?" Clark swallowed convulsively, shifting a little. "Why?"

Lex sucked in a breath, clearing his sinuses the way he wished he could clear his head. "Maybe to get us inside."

It took a while for Clark to muster the energy for a sentence so there was a silence before he managed, "So he hasn't joined them?"

"Or he's joined them," Lex admitted. "I can't tell. Do you think you can get free?"

Clark shook his head slightly. "I... am finding it difficult to move at all," he said in a soft voice. "My... blood is boiling near the ring..."

Over his lungs and vital organs no less. It had to be excruciating and no matter the cause, hard to forgive.

Lex shifted, and almost belatedly realized that he could move his legs. They weren't chained, and that was an opportunity, wasn't it? "Can you shrug out of it? Get the chain in your teeth and bite it?"

"I... pass out if I bend that close," Clark replied weakly. He did sound more coherent with his head back and away from his chest area. "I'm... sorry."

"Don't be. I'm sorry I can't get out of these cuffs." Lex pulled his legs up under his body, attempting to stand up. "Can you lean towards me? I might be able to kick it off."

Clark concentrated and after a period of maneuvering toppled over as far as the restraints would allow him, the necklace dangling.

By then Lex was on his feet, leaning out as far as he could. They were close enough to manage it, and the pain in his side hardly mattered as he got the toe of his left boot beneath the chain. If he couldn't pull it off of Clark, he was definitely going to break the chain. Simple as that. A jerk of motion and the chain snapped even as a small alarm sounded from the necklace itself.

That was not a good sign.

Clark tried to roll away from the fallen gem and then to a few deep clear breaths and flexed his arms, breaking his chains like threads.

"Let's get going," Lex said anxiously, waiting for Clark to break him free or at least bust the arm cuffs.

Clark staggered a little as he knelt up and ripped the restraints from Lex's hands, even as there was a sudden noise and movement at the door. "Behind me!"

Lex, fully suited up or not, took a moment to get behind Clark, hiding in his shadow as best as a redheaded man could.

They only had a moment before door was opened and bullets were flying as Clark advanced implacably in the face of resistance. He tossed one of their would be captors out of the way allowing them access to the corridor, even as things became a little chaotic around them.

"Get the damn ring!" Came a shrill feminine yell and Clark was busy keeping people away from Lex to stop the man who darted inside behind them. Clark glanced around hoping to find it first, but couldn't under the heaving mass of people trying to take him down with pure numbers.

But he felt it when it came closer towards him. "Go... stay... out," he managed to Lex even as he was overwhelmed by a mass of humanity.

"I'll come back for you." Best that Lex could promise before he hit someone with a sharp uppercut and then ran. He'd hit a corner, get up to the ceiling, and work from there. Find Bruce, get Clark out, whatever opportunity presented itself to him first. Whatever would serve the situation best.

They wouldn't take that sort of risk with Superman again, he knew that. He wondered briefly how long he had been unconscious and Clark had been sitting there barely able to breathe.

He was running on automatic now, in the heightened sense of awareness that adrenaline and near death pushed him into. He noted everything, every turn, every detail every duct and structural shaft. 

He would go back. He would have to find Bruce first. Would he really sell them out? Sell him out?"

He didn't think so, but. There was always a first, always a turning point. For all that Lex knew, he'd pushed Bruce over the edge of that turning point, pushed his almost brother and long-term lover into betraying him. Them. The whole fucking world.

Lex just didn't want to think about that, not as he moved, pushing past pain and worry to act. There was noise up ahead and he'd head for it.

He would have to find somewhere to hole up and wait for his abilities to heal his body completely.

More guards, terrorists, whatever the hell they were. Two of them. The footsteps resolved into information he automatically processed, and wounded or not, they didn't know what hit them as he ambushed them on the corner.

There. He'd do the most obvious thing in the world -- he'd hide nearby. After all, who would wait near evidence that they'd been there already?

He pilfered the unconscious bodies of weapons and any supplies and with a smooth effort swung up into the air duct in the corner, pulling at the wound in his side and feeling a fresh trickle of warmth over his skin. They were only partly of metal -- this was desert country. Stone and the natural fissures in rock acted as good air conditioning. And a good hole up place.

He could curl up and rest for however long it would take him to heal. Lex braced himself, curled up loosely in the horizontal part of the duct, and settled in to wait.

And to try not to think too hard about his 'brother' and what they were doing to Clark. Knowing what it meant to him now made it all the more difficult to hold on to the belief that Bruce was doing all this for the best. And that was a very bitter thought to swallow.

Shy of thirty years of living together, and Bruce did this. They'd been together since their parents had been killed, and if Bruce had really betrayed him, then it was the worst betrayal Lex had ever faced in his life. Worse, he couldn't even muster up anger about it.

Because it was his fault, wasn't it?

He had been the one who had strayed. He knew that Bruce didn't like it for all his feigned indifference. Bruce couldn't help that he'd had the accident, he didn't ask for it... but then, neither had Lex. He hadn't asked for his life to be taken over by Bruce's frustration and depression.

Lex took in a breath, and then released it just as silently, tension seeping out of his back slowly, slowly. 

And instead of trying to combat it, he'd dodged. He'd coddled Bruce into apparently the type of monster that could justify destroying humanity. Or something like it.

Clark had been the last straw, that much had been obvious. Bruce must have known. Bruce always knew.

Clark...

Clark was something else, even if it had started with a quick hard fuck. It left Lex muddled and confused and... he hadn't really ever been with anyone but Bruce before the accident. Sure, there had been school, but none of them had clicked. Worked. Clark felt like it could work, but there was no logical reason why it _should_ work, not when he already had Bruce.

Bruce had been everything to him for years, Bruce and Alfred. Lex rested his forehead against his knees, and breathed again. Slow in, savoring it, slow out. He needed to think about his fucked up personal life some other time. When there wasn't a tiny voracious black hole to worry about.

Was it being kept here or somewhere else?

Could that be a reason for Bruce's behavior? Both of them knew how dangerous such things could be. It would be nice to think there was some reason behind all of this. It was easier to bleed and hurt for a cause or reason. It was the accidents and twists of fate that were so damaging in their randomness. There was no one to blame, no revenge to be had, and no retribution.

Maybe the pieces had just fallen wrong for Bruce.

Again.

Lex breathed again, knowing he was healing as he waited there, curled up in the body part of his suit. No equipment, just his body. Once it knitted itself back together... he'd prove just how well he could do without 'crutches'.

* * *

Bruce had made the most of his limited freedom. They had taken his Chair, and he was sore and raw from his surgery, no matter how skilled Talia has been. They hadn't waited for it to heal before jacking his nervous system into the simulation of their Doomsday weapon. It was only then that he saw the full extent of the nature of the "Swords of the Angels" as Ra's liked to call it. The singularity was going to be dropped from its magnetic cage -- still a secret known only to Talia and Ra's himself -- into the core of the earth and the strings of the knot would be extrude and drawn out by the effects of immense magnetic resonators all over the world. Ra's intended to use the 'Swords' as a weapon of cleansing. They would slice effortlessly through a city and scour it and everyone in it from the earth in a few moments. He could rearrange mountains, part the oceans and cleave the skies.

It was every worst case scenario he had ever considered, all from the peripheral effects of something that was microscopic in size. He had underestimated the ambition of Ra's, and his willingness to risk to get what he wanted. It seemed he would risk the world to gain it for himself.

He still managed to move around the room he was linked into and had made the most of the computer he had been given in ways that none of them would hopefully ever know. 

The deadline was uncomfortably close and he was no nearer finding the location of the singularity than he had been before. And that was critical. He could destroy this base here, but if he destroyed it, and the singularity was let loose, the only difference would be that the demolition of the Earth would be random and unstoppable or the knot singularity would destabilize and collapse, bringing the heart of a supernova to vaporize everything. He had suspected some of the nature of the proposed weapon of retribution and had allowed himself to play the part of helpless embittered genius to get closer to a way to safely disarm it.

It seemed as if it had all been for nothing, even if the part had not taken much acting. And perhaps the deadline was closer than he'd thought, when the door to his room creaked open and someone slipped inside.

One moment and he knew who it was from the way they moved and breathed. A presence as familiar as his own self. "Lex. I wondered how long it would be before you got here."

"I was delayed by what you told them would debilitate us both," Lex growled, donning the Batman voice though he was exposed without the mask and cowl.

"It was necessary," Bruce replied narrowing his eyes. There was no time for rationalization or explanation. He was not going to apologize for what needed to be done. Lex would understand when he knew the facts; he knew that with a complacence born of familiarity and as for Superman... well...

It had been necessary. And sometimes personal was the same as important.

"You were too swift getting here. Your new alliance no doubt." He turned and looked at Lex awkwardly without his Chair or assistance.

"They recaptured him. So, you _planned_ this?" Lex asked coldly, walking towards Bruce with a purpose in his step. "I... Or are you just playing me again?"

"I knew you would find their base. I knew you would force entry," Bruce answered once again and injected urgency into his tone. "This is important."

"Yes, it's important. He's dropped a fucking _black hole_ into the middle of the earth. It takes the idea of digging a hole to China to a whole new level."

Bruce stilled, his fears crystallized and starting a cascade of probabilities, and worst case scenarios in his mind. "He's what?" His eyes were sharp and bright.

"Dropped it into the earth. I have no idea what to do now." Lex's eyes scanned the room, taking in the simple wheelchair that Bruce was in. "And they took your chair."

"Fuck." It was Bruce's turn to be thrown by the news even as he started thinking. "They've already released it? When? When?"

"Ten minutes ago," Lex said with a spare glance to the clock on the computer screen that Bruce was near.

"God dammit! I was so close to finding it, so.. close." Bruce seemed enraged with himself, as careful planning disintegrated into disaster. "Lex, I need your help. I need you to get me to a certain lab, we don't have much time."

Even as he spoke a rumbling vibration could be felt through the floor. "The local magnetic resonator projector, they're bringing it on line."

"I'll carry you," Lex told him, even as he moved to scoop Bruce out of the chair. "If I hadn't been nursing a gunshot wound, I would've been here sooner."

"You can resent me for that later," Bruce replied, dismissing the criticism for now, even if a look in his blue eyes should a hint of acknowledgment. "If there is a later."

The cold hard way he said it made it obvious he was not exaggerating. "Turn left out the door, then second right, third left and into a room that says Simulation. Grab the computer as well."

"The computer in this room?" Lex hefted Bruce into his arms, ready to run them both to the room.

"Yes, the laptop. I need that," Bruce twisted and grabbed it from off of the side. "Go... Go, we won't have long."

He didn't get a reply -- just Lex, running through the hallways, taking the first left, the second right, and then the third left, taking them right to the room that said 'simulation lab'. It was Bruce's show, so he'd let Bruce tell him what to do once he'd pushed that door open.

There was a chair-couch there with a lot of leads and metallic filaments stringing out of it in a disordered mess of technology. "Put me in the controller, hook up the computer over there," Bruce ordered.

"You're going to hook yourself up?" Lex glanced over his 'brother' as he set him in the 'controller', wondering just what they'd done to Bruce. But he didn't linger, and did his work quickly.

"Surgery," Bruce hissed with pain as he jacked the leads into his spine through the raw interlock points. "Test case. As I managed not to die, then Ra's al Ghul had it performed on himself. They made me run the interface through the simulator... Run the ghost.exe I programmed on the simulation computer. It will jack me in to the live system and then it will be me or Ra's fighting for control of the singularity. Free Superman and keep them off of me. If the singularity is unstable it could be very... bad."

'Goodbye world' bad, but Lex would know that. Perhaps he would explain it to Superman. 

"I'll get him free and get back here to you," Lex promised as he brought the program up and just ran it, obeying Bruce automatically. "Good luck." 

Later, later, if the world didn't end, they'd work through their shit.

Lex turned, and ran back the way he'd come, ready to fight, sneak and dodge where needed.

Behind him Bruce sank into a virtual fight as vital as any mission he had ever done as Batman.

* * *

Clark was chained back in the same room, completely flat out this time. It had been a long rather agonizing time for him waiting for Lex to come back, but he'd never doubted once that he would. He'd said he'd would, and Clark believed him. That had kept him going through the long hours of near delirium and pain and the doubt that flickered around the thought that Lex had possessed a Kryptonite ring. Kept it on him. That etched into the oldest pain of all -- different was wrong, different was dead, not just once but every day and perhaps it was the nature of humans to distrust him as an outsider. Perhaps no matter the promises, the soft words, he was always going to be alone.

But Lex had promised, and they didn't lie to each other.

The faint sound of a thud made him stir.

It sounded... like a body hitting the door. And then the door gave way under two shaking hard kicks, and there... was Lex. Still wearing just his boots and his bodysuit, a bloody graze over one cheek, knuckles split. He wasted no time in getting to Clark, looking for the debilitating Kryptonite.

There it was, easy enough to remove and be rid of. He looked deathly ill, but color started returning the moment it was taken away.

"Uhn..."

"There we go... Ra's has dropped the singularity into the earth, or something like that." Lex waited, hovering, to help Clark up.

"I take it this isn't a good thing," Clark answered already sounding stronger and then stretched and snapped the chains again as the taint of Kryptonite fled. "I knew you'd come back."

"I didn't want to leave you this long." He took Clark's hand, and pulled at him to help him up. "He's essentially dropped a black hole into the planet, Clark. Not a good thing. We need to get back to Bruce and protect him -- he's fighting for control of it from the inside of the program."

"So, it was a plan," Clark sat up. "...after all. My strength is coming back. How do we stop this?"

"We defend Bruce. I... It would be physically impossible for either of us to _fight_ a black hole singularity. It's an atom that's been turned into pure energy. We have to let the computer mind handle that."

"Right." Clark agreed. "Mm. It used to take me a long time to recover from Kryptonite. But I get better at that as I get older. Hold on, and I'll get us back to this lab."

"Can you hear his heartbeat?" Lex clutched at Clark's hand, not letting go. A thought struck, and he tipped his head. "Don't do anything stupid? We _will_ get through this. I'll kick your ass if you get yourself hurt."

"You were the one that got shot," Clark pointed out, taking hold of him and concentrating his hearing. "Got him, and a lot of others closing in on that area."

"Okay, let's put an end to that." Lex held on, sensing that he was going to get a mach ten ride.

He was right. They were there in a split second, even as the massed troops of Ra's al Ghul decided to try and take back the simulation lab and put a stop to the interloper who was hijacking the system. Clark didn't even pause even as he blew them back down the corridor to give them all space.

Lex pulled away from Clark then, leaping onto the people rather than wait for a first attack. After all, there were guns involved -- nobody waited politely for an attack when guns were involved.

The next few minutes were frenetic. Lex attacked and Clark kept the bullets off of him like a portable shield. They worked... well as a team. Lex was used to fighting as part of a team, or even with a guardian angel over his shoulder, so he worked carefully with Clark. As long as they took it steadily, they could cut down the ranks that were trying to get to Bruce. 

The rumbling grew stronger and there was a sudden rainbow edge distortion in the air and then a rumbling flash of light. There was an odd sensation of stretching, heaviness and in front of them a man near the rainbow distortion shredded in front of them like a grotesque blood filled tissue.

"Lex!" Clark literally grabbed and curled around him to protect him from the worst effects as matter rippled around them as the gravity distorting effect of the so called 'Swords of the Angels' swept through the building in a catastrophic blade.

"Jesus..." Lex couldn't close his eyes, watching in fascination. "Into the room, we can't..." Just stand there and watch.

Clark pushed them back into the simulation room and the walls were lit up with shots from all over the world. That rainbow shimmer hung above cities twisting and writhing as a holographic representation of an ever moving knot spun and twisted back and forth in the air in front of them. Bruce was lying back in the control chair, blood trickling from his nose, eyes and ears even as tension spasms shuddered through his body. An avatar image of Bruce was present on the walls struggling in a battle of wills and technology with his most formidable foe.

Lex couldn't talk. It was even cutting through their own location, but as it did that, it was hanging like a threat over the lives of millions of people. And Bruce looked like he was dying. "Bar the door," Lex murmured, staring at the screens. "We can only wait."

Clark barricaded the door and stood back. "Is he winning?" He nearly flinched as he saw Metropolis on the screen with light shimmering over the top of it. It looked like a sword of light trying to descend but being held back as it stuttered and writhed. 

"Oh God... no."

It wasn't just there, it was a multitude blades of destruction of everywhere. For some the sword dropped, for others it was held back.

"This is a disaster," Lex murmured, taking a deep breath. "We need to... Ra's! Clark, stay here. Protect Bruce at all costs. I'm going find this bastard and unhook him." He didn't even wait to see if Clark agreed He knew what way to head. He knew what he had to do.

Lex had spied there after his recovery, he knew where the main controls would be, and Ra's al Ghul knew that Lex knew what the hi-tech couch was all about. 

The stronghold was torn apart. Men and women in various stages of dismemberment and deformation sprawled across his route. Lab technicians stretched like taffy, all their molecules having become plastic and stretched by the energy waves of the singularity knot that had sliced through the stronghold. 

Lex hoped it wasn't Bruce who had done that because the death some of these had suffered had been hideous.

He used the smoke to hide himself, he used the weapons he had claimed from the dead as he leapt past to reach the main control room where he could clearly see Ra's al Ghul, his eyes, nose and ears bleeding as well, locked like Bruce into the interface and mental combat.

Behind him, Talia was working frantically at the controls bellowing commands to those still there and still in one piece. "Stabilize the resonance generators... what the hell is happening with our China resonator! It won't matter who wins or loses if the singularity destabilizes!"

Just a moment, faint movements towards the man silent as an assassin, vengeance for the world in his mind. Ra's was old, and even if he had lived forever and a day, Lex could still snap his neck. Yes. Just like that. Simple but effective. Batman shouldn't kill, but for the world and his brother he might. Once the decision was made there was nothing left but a silent rush forwards to make his move.

He was swift enough to make it to Ra's without being stopped but rather horrifyingly it was Ra's himself that called the alert even as he reached to finish him. His hand snapped up, incredibly strong to grab him and all around him, the screens filled with an avatar image of the mans face yelling, "Stop him!"

But it was enough of a distraction it seemed, for Bruce to seize advantage in the mental battle of wills. That image flickered and the shape of Bruce's blue eyes and sharp face replaced the other man's for just a moment and a familiar voice snapped a command.

"Get out of there, Lex! Now!"

Out, because Bruce was probably going to do another brutal sweep through the place -- and Lex couldn't care if they all died horrible deaths. They were killing _innocents_ all over the world. In their homes, to those they had protected for years. Lex jerked, kicked Al Ghul's stomach hard, and used the pressure to flip himself backwards and away.

Over the other side he saw Talia sprinting for the door as well even as the rainbow edges flickered around the edges of his sight as he turned and ran. Like the sword of an angel, death was approaching and he could feel it tugging at him as it sliced down into the control room. 

He was out and along the corridor before it severed everything, catching up with Talia.

"We've lost control! The resonators are failing!" she gasped at him. "It was never meant to go on this long!"

Lex did the only thing he could think to do -- punched her in the mouth, and kept running. "I'm real surprised your fucking cockeyed insane plan isn't holding together!"

She staggered a bit, but shook it off as the lab exploded behind them. "Don't be an idiot! Do you know what this means?"

"You put a _black_ _hole_ in the planet. Yes!" He almost lost his foot ripping around one corner.

"The singularity is destabilizing, it will collapse. The theory has it, if it does that catastrophically, it can detonate with the minimum force of a hundred billion megaton atom bombs!" Talia yelled after him. "Like a supernova inside the earth!"

"Blown to hell or torn to spaghetti strands of information. Hell of a choice there." Lex jerked open the door to the simulation room. "Can you stabilize it?"

"No, I nearly had it... but... it's gone too far. I was hoping that you could find a way of projecting it out into space..."

Clark had un-barricaded the door hearing them coming. He was looking very grim as they entered as if more had passed there in Lex's absence than mere defense.

"How do we project it into _space_? It would have to rip through the planet to get out, wouldn't it?" Lex asked sharply as he stepped in.

Bruce's picture flickered up faintly on the wall. "I have it in a magnetic bubble, the last gasps of the resonators. But they're focused inwards and there's no time to recalibrate them outwards, get them fixed and then actually use them. There's only roughly 151 seconds before it detonates, and it would have to be well out beyond the moon and possibly even beyond Mars to be safe."

He seemed to look at Clark then who nodded slowly and then looking at his hands which he flexed decisively. "Place it for me, Bruce. I'll get it as far away as I can."

"You..." Lex stared at Clark for a moment, and then nodded. You did... you did what you had to. He hadn't known that Superman could get into _space_ , but... why not? "Good luck. You'll do a good job."

Clark looked at him a moment longer, a world of might have been, maybes or something in his eyes. "Goodbye, Lex. Thank you."

"Placed at these coordinates, Superman." Bruce said in a voice that was less demanding and harsh. "Good luck."

And just like that, in a primary color blur, Clark was gone.

Lex exhaled slowly, and glanced to the screens before he absently grabbed Talia by the back of her neck. Sometimes a moment of decision like that could stun a person, and he was lucky -- she was stunned.

And she damn well wasn't going to get away.

Bruce was evidently using the computers to track the singularity's path upwards, training the external cameras to follow its progress too. It was early evening here, the light dimming and Superman was pushing straight up, through the atmosphere out into space.

"He... shouldn't be able to do that. No one can do that." Talia murmured fixing her eyes on the blob of moving light. "He's getting close to the speed of light..."

"And that might still not be enough..." Bruce's electronic avatar said from the wall. "Come on..."

The countdown was ticking down inexorably on the wall as the dot of light sped past the moon accelerating still, out towards the asteroid belt.

Lex shifted, moving to stand behind her to better hold her still. It wasn't a hold she was going to be able to break without snapping her own neck. "C'mon, c'mon, get out there and get back here..." 

The seconds ticked down and there was no sign of the singularity slowing. Bruce could only track the anomaly itself, so as the time ticked down to zero everyone on Earth saw what happened just as the marker was about to clear the asteroid belt. 

For a moment there was another sun born in the heavens. Night vanished and a new star blazed in the sky. There should have been the roar of sound, the shudder of the planet but there was nothing. Just the light of a sun where it shouldn't have been, and the absence of someone who should have been there.

Lex stared, fingers of his left hand slowly tightening on Talia's neck. "Bruce. Bruce, where is he?"

"Nothing reading on any sensors Lex..."

"No one could have survived that," Talia said with finality. "No one. No Meta, no... Superman. You don't survive the implosion of a black hole and birth of a short-lived star in your face."

"You don't survive creating one either," Lex hissed, fingers digging in sharply suddenly. "You're going to join your father in hell."

If he was coming back, he would have been back. He would have been walking in with that shy smile and his hair mussed and...

The pain of loss startled him as logic ruthlessly executed hope.

"My father cannot die," Talia replied calmly "By all means, think that. But if you want your... 'brother' to survive, you best take him out of the interface. He's been there far beyond the safe limits."

"If the singularity hit your father..." There was no way anyone short of a god could survive that. Talia was delirious, and Lex walked her forwards. He could pull Bruce loose and keep a watch on her.

"Do not underestimate his capabilities," Talia replied although she seemed just as keen as he was to release the other man from the biointerface. "Withdraw from the interface, Bruce -- we don't want your mind trapped out there in the computer."

The avatar on the screen nodded and faded out, even as she reached to unplug him. "An incredible achievement. I can only think of a handful of people in the world who even stood a hope of surviving the interface, let alone managed the computations involved to create a secure magnetic bubble from a system not designed to do that."

"Bruce could." Lex waited until Bruce was unplugged, then murmured, "You can come with us of your own will, or I can knock you unconscious. Your choice."

"I'll come. I did not always agree with my father's methods, but there is a certain familial ... debt to be paid," Talia answered, her attention still focused on Bruce. "Easy, Bruce, easy..."

Bruce blinked, his eyes blood red with burst capillaries, his face stained by drying trickles of blood-like tear tracks

"Hey." Lex caught his brother's gaze, expression sad and tight as he bent to get Bruce out of the chair, now that he'd let Talia go. "Let's get you home."

He blinked again, a tear of blood fresh and bright spilling from his irritated eyes as he looked at Lex. "We'll talk about this later, Lex," he said roughly.

"Yeah." He didn't even want to think about what 'this' was. Just moved, hefting Bruce in his arms, and gesturing for Talia to proceed them out the door. "What cities did we lose?"

"I prevented complete annihilation of any cities though... there was damage to many. Some damage to Metropolis, New York, Tokyo, Delhi, ...other capitals and main industrial centers." Bruce didn't have strength to resist being carried. "Including Gotham. You will have to issue a statement as Batman."

"I'll do it from the plane. I have a spare uniform in the back." Lex walked fast, knowing that the devastation would take years to clean up. How many lives lost, because one madman genius decided that he wanted to wipe humanity off the map?

Because he'd gotten brilliant technical minds to work together for a short time.

"The world deserves to know what happened to him..." Bruce murmured. It was obvious who he was referring to. He'd told him not to get hurt. He'd demanded that he didn't, and in the end it was a promise that couldn't be kept. He was aching inside from the fracture of a 'what might have been'.

Lex's hands went tight for a moment, but he kept walking. And he'd keep walking, past bodies that had been stretched out like chewing gum, past burst bags of blood, through what was left of the hallways that would take them to the surface. It didn't matter if he was moving on autopilot. "Of course."

His parents too. Clark had been raised a human, they deserved to know more than a broadcast would tell them. They _deserved_ to know. They deserved to know the real story.

"He knew what he was doing, Lex," Bruce said softly from his arms. "He knew... what would happen. That it had to be done."

"I know." Lex's hands were still tight, and he had to use his shoulder against a wall to steady himself as they started up the broken incline that would take them out. "I need to find his parents, that's all. It..."

"Smallville. Jonathan and Martha Kent." Bruce closed his eyes. 

"Why do you know this?"

"You think I wouldn't run a background check on a man you slept with?" Bruce replied seeming tired to the point of exhaustion.

"When the hell did you have time -- no, I don't want to know." Lex stumbled forwards a little, a jerk of motion keeping him on his feet as he kept walking towards the light. It was easy to keep up with Talia -- something about all of those warped dead bodies seemed to have taken the life out of her.

It was one thing to deal in abstract concepts, and quite another to see the devastation of application.

Perhaps Bruce had whiled away those two hours offline tracking down anyone he had spoken to that night before he turned it off. Perhaps he had used the computer system in his Chair during the conference after they had met again to run the check. That was more likely.

It was times like this when he just didn't care any more.

It was time to go home and hope that Alfred had not been a casualty, and break the news to the world that there was a good chance the planet was only alive because of a superhero they had treated with dubious suspicion and had excluded from being one of them because he didn't fit. 

After all, alien or not, he'd done something that no mere human could've done. And he'd died doing it. Wasn't that something? It was, to Lex, and... He didn't know. He'd work on autopilot until things pulled together in his head again. Lex needed to know how bad things were in Gotham, and in Metropolis, because he felt he owed it to the place after having lost them their protector.

He could deal with things that needed him as Batman. There was inherent armor in pulling on the mask that allowed him to be distant and clinical. But later... later he needed to know how he felt about this. About Bruce, about losing a 'what might have been' with Clark, and what that last look he had given him had really been. When those eyes had met his and he had seen a lost hope, regret and a final gift as if he had known it was the last time he would ever look into anyone's eyes.

Because that was one image that wasn't ever going away.

Ever.

* * *

The Kents lived on a piece of land that Lex could only think of as a prime example of Americana. The barn was red, the house was yellow, and the road that he drove up to their home was dirt and gravel.

It wasn't something he'd ever had to do before, and Bruce hadn't been approving of his plan to drive out to Smallville, Kansas, all the way from Metropolis. But it was something that Lex needed to do. He needed... to give them closure if he could. Maybe get closure himself. He wasn't sure. It probably would just make things worse.

Lex put his car into park, and got out.

He had been noticed, it seemed. A sandy haired older man walked out from around the barn and came over to intercept him. It was obvious to a trained observer where Superman had taken the model for his blue contact lenses. They were the exact shade of the older mans piercing regard.

"Can I help you?"

"Mr. Kent, I'm Lex Luthor." He held a hand out to the sandy-haired man. "I wanted to talk to you about your son, Clark."

He could see the man's jaw work as if suppressing unbearable emotion. "Come in. My wife... I suspect we know what you're going to say. "

"Then I'm sorry," Lex murmured, mouth going tight for a moment. "I was one of his colleagues. I thought you might want to know... more than the news casts said."

"As I know you don't work for the Planet, I'm guessing you mean his other... colleagues," Jonathan Kent cleared his throat. "Both of us would appreciate that." He showed the way up to the house. "Martha? We have someone here about ...Clark."

The woman in the kitchen turned and treated them to a faint smile. "I'll put the coffee on, please... have a seat."

Her eyes were evidently red and swollen from tears that were being hidden from visitors. The smile of welcome was an act of heroism in itself.

Other colleagues. Of course Clark had confided in his parents. He'd talked about being alone, so it only made sense that he'd turn to the comfort he could get. "Thank you. I wanted to offer my condolences. Your son... was an amazing human being."

Jonathan Kent gave him a certain look at his choice of words. "We have always been proud of him. Have a seat, son, we'll join you. We appreciate the chance to know what really happened."

He sat down, careful to not scrape the chair on the floor, watching them. Clearly they were grieving for their only son, and Lex wished he could give them more comfort than he was going to try to do. "To put it simply... he saved us all."

"We heard the broadcast," Jonathan said in a gruff voice.

Martha put the coffee down and brought over a plate of cookies. "Your broadcast," she added astutely. "Wasn't it?"

He wasn't sure how she'd guessed that -- it was a leap to go from 'Batman' to 'Lex Luthor' without adding 'sanctimonious asshole' in between them as a bridge. Lex fell silent for a moment, then picked up the coffee cup and simply nodded. "He did what no one else could have done -- he took the knot singularity, and flew it as far away from us as possible. We're still not sure what the long-term repercussions of an explosion of that magnitude are going to be, but if he hadn't done what he did, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. It would have detonated like that in the center of the earth."

Martha looked directly at him. He'd only ever seen one other person look at someone so directly, so brilliantly and as if she were looking into him. Her son had come by that talent through adoptive osmosis it seemed.

"Thank you. That helps. It helps to know that. He... would do anything to protect his home. Even the impossible."

"Mrs. Kent, your son did the impossible when he flew the knot singularity away from the planet. I just... want you to know. He's currently counted among Metropolis's missing from the loop that passed through, but he died saving the planet."

She nodded, a tear leaking down her cheek, and Jonathan put his arm around her. "Clark has been saving the planet.... used to save the planet all the time." He exhaled. "And they still... suspected him."

"If he were alive today, they wouldn't. Not any more." Lex took a faintly unsteady sip of his coffee. "It's human nature to fear what you don't understand. But he was... raised human. Wanted to be human with an urgency that I can't put to words. He was more humane than most people who are born human."

"It sounds like you knew him well Mr. Luthor," Jonathan covered Martha's wordless pain with a question of his own.

"I wish that I'd known him better, but he left a strong impression on me. And on our other... colleague that he'd worked with."

"Clark... cared for all his friends deeply." Jonathan cleared his throat. "But often felt by making friends, he put them in danger."

"Unfortunately... it went the other way around this time," Lex offered a little uncomfortably. A few days only they had known each other, and most of that had been spent in pain before his death. He had no right to claim Clark even as a friend. Not after that.

"Mr. Luthor, if there was one thing we had a many discussions with Clark over, it was assuming responsibility for things that others do," Martha said in a soft voice. "Please... please don't do the same thing. It wasn't you, it wasn't Clark who caused the damage that occurred. You just assumed the responsibility to stop it. Clark would have known what he was doing. He... people underestimated him. Because he never tried to be superior, people assumed he was stupid. But he knew. After his memory developed, he knew everything and he would have gone into what he did with his eyes wide open."

"I still feel badly for... having got there at a time when the only choice was for Clark to do what he did." Lex's mouth compressed. "And I do wish that he'd had better experiences with humanity. Our worst enemies are people who were born human and started to hate it -- people like Ra's al Ghul -- not people who weren't born human but loved humanity anyway."

"No one can be expected to save everyone. The fact that you wanted to... means you were the type of person I know he would have cared for," Martha said again, turning instinctively to comfort him rather than the other way around.

And he had, but Lex couldn't quite say that to Martha or Jonathan Kent. It wasn't his place to lay claim to a dead man's heart. Things wouldn't have worked out, anyway. He just smiled crookedly. "You did a good job of raising him. I know you're both... very proud."

"We are. We always will be," Jonathan replied, only just keeping the roughness from his voice. "He was the last of his kind. And... he defeated the destiny to 'rule' that his parents laid out for him."

"You were his parents," Lex countered, "And what you taught him mattered more to him than anything his biological parents could have encouraged." He fell quiet a moment, and then added, "I know it's rude of me to ask this but... do you know if he had a base of operations? Some of us are interested in dismantling it before someone opportunistic stumbles across it and uses anything Clark might've had."

There was a long pause as they both fell silent. Martha squeezed Jonathan's hand as she made the same sort of decision to trust that he had seen Clark make with effortless ease.

"When Clark was young, Jonathan made the loft in the barn in to his... Fortress of Solitude. He always called it that." She paused a moment swallowing as memories obviously tumbled through her thoughts with aching loss. "A couple of years ago he told us he had made himself, with the help of the mother-crystal he assembled, a newer Fortress of Solitude. He didn't tell us where. He didn't want us to be compromised."

"Of course. We'll manage to find it on our own." Lex inclined his head. "There's every possibility that it was destroyed by one of the loops, too."

"Kryptonian technology may have been advanced enough to resist it, I don't know." Jonathan responded. He shook his head. "Clark wouldn't have wanted anything of his to be used to hurt someone. He was always afraid that he might hurt people."

"I'd noticed that." Where do you put something when you're afraid it could hurt people? Someplace without people. "He was very careful."

"I'm afraid we don't know any more than that. The ship was destroyed and the Caves collapsed once the three crystals were brought together and became the mother-crystal," Martha said.

"I always said we were damn lucky it didn't become a 'father' crystal, or that Clark didn't choose that," Jonathan added. "His teenage years were a little shaky. Would you like to stay to dinner, son?"

"I... don't want to inconvenience you. I just came back to give you my community's condolences."

"Please, it's... good to be able to talk about the real him," Martha added sincerely. "If not today then maybe some other time?"

"I..." Lex looked from Martha, to Jonathan, then back to Martha. "If it's no trouble, then I'll stay. I know what it's like to carry the burden of secrets, and if I can help..."

"You help just by being here. By coming," Martha replied and got up. "Call me Martha, please."

"All right. Martha." Lex smiled, glanced at Jonathan, and then broached the topic of Clark's double life, and how he pulled it off so seamlessly.

* * *

Dinner with the Kents had been a curious mixture of comfort and pain to Lex. They were good people. Jonathan Kent was as solid as the earth he worked, but not afraid to show emotion. Martha Kent seemed to look right into him as if she knew somehow that their friendship had been something more.

They had told him a lot, more than he might have ever learned in any other circumstances. Not just about how good Clark had been, but how he had problems, how he had struggled with dealing with what his powers might do. What he had gone through because someone needed to know the whole story that would never be told.

Clark Kent, when he had a memorial in time, would be remembered not for great deeds but a more gentle presence in the world. Somehow that seemed wrong, because Superman would receive the accolades of the world, but had been just a mask for a man who had been warmhearted and beautiful in mind, body and spirit.

It seemed even more wrong by the time he had driven the three hours back to Metropolis and made his way into WayneLuthor Towers.

So much potential, never given enough time to bloom. Just... blown out. Clark never got to feel like what being trusted was like, and Lex never got a chance to explain that it had taken years of work for the local PD to stop taking potshots at Batman out of fear. There just hadn't been time to let Clark know how far from alone he was, and Lex knew somehow that was all Clark had ever needed to hear and what had always been denied to him.

And there wasn't going to be a chance. A whole world of what-ifs and might've beens had blown up in that flare of energy and light.

"Master Lex, you look tired," Alfred met him at the door. "How was your trip?"

"It was." Six hours driving, and a few talking with the Kents. "He had good parents. I... don't know if it makes it better to know that, or worse. How're you? How's Bruce?"

"Master Bruce is in the living room, waiting for you. I believe he wishes to talk to you." Alfred had a hint in his voice that evinced surprise, "I am well recovered, Master Lex, though I would feel better if you stopped pushing yourself."

"I'm not pushing myself," Lex denied as he let the door close behind him. "There's just been a lot to do." And doing was easier than thinking, but he probably did need to talk to Bruce.

It was better than looking out the front window.

"Do you need any refreshments, Master Lex?" Alfred offered. "I can tell Master Bruce you are too tired to see him if you wish."

"Which'll work as well as covering yourself in hairspray to avoid catching on fire in a burning building," Lex muttered as he took his jacket off, and absently hung it up himself. "No, I'll be fine. Thanks."

"I'll bring you a coffee, Master Lex," Alfred replied. "I will bring it through shortly."

Alfred must've guessed that he needed one, and if Alfred felt something, he'd push it. "All right. Thanks." Lex smiled tiredly, then walked through to living room.

God knew what Bruce would say to him.

Bruce looked better then he had. The biointerface had left him debilitated in the days following the incident and subject to hemorrhaging, though that had been slowing as time went on. His eyes had returned to their normal piercing blue and he watched Lex come in. "Lex, I was... becoming concerned. I expected you to return some hours ago."

"They convinced me to have dinner with them," Lex told him as he walked into the room, closing the door behind him. Bruce was in a normal wheelchair -- it would take a while to rebuild the Chair, once they got to Gotham, but Lex was more than willing to help. "It was the least I could do."

"It must have been difficult for you," Bruce offered the words as if they were unfamiliar. "Sit. Please."

"I hadn't meant to be gone for so long," Lex half-apologized as he sat down on the sofa. "How's your day been?"

"I've been putting funds and resources into the rebuilding effort. Convincing some of our fellow business moguls that charity serves their interests," Bruce answered. He wheeled himself close to Lex awkwardly.

Lex sat, watching, waiting for more than a faint hint of what was going on. He was too tired to make the first move of whatever it was Bruce wanted him to do. "Good. Great. They're idiots if they think things don't need to be rebuilt and fast."

"They are sometimes idiots," Bruce admitted and then looked at him steadily. "Lex, you've been... different since this happened. We never did talk about things 'later'."

"What am I supposed to say?" Lex rubbed at his temples for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders. "I'm tired. I can't shake it."

"You haven't been sleeping," Bruce observed. He cleared his throat. "You knew him barely three days Lex..."

"So I shouldn't care at all," Lex filled in coldly for his 'brother', his expression mirroring Bruce's for blandness. "We didn't know what was going on, but he... he trusted me, my decisions."

"I didn't say that you shouldn't care, Lex." Bruce replied. "I wanted to ask you, considering the time you were together, what your feelings were for him. He was an easy man to trust... to respect."

"He was." Lex closed his eyes. "It doesn't really matter, since he's dead. All right? I just don't want to talk about it. I'm still trying not to get pissed off that you planned things to happen that way."

"I planned for the singularity to never be released," Bruce said. "I also.. talked with him while you were stopping Ra's. About you."

Maybe it wouldn't have been released if Clark hadn't been tied up and Lex hadn't been shot. But... no point in muttering about that betrayal. "I'm sorry I missed that."

"You would have been," Bruce answered, looking away for a moment. "He said a few things that perhaps you and Alfred have been wanting to say to me for a long time."

He paused for a long moment as he deliberately recalled how the younger man had taken his not subtle warning to stay clear of Lex and turned it around on him. "He told me I was a fool because I was pushing you away and hurting you when he would have given everything to be with you. That even so, he knew you'd always choose me because you love me. That I should try treating people who cared for me with some respect rather than thinking what I was doing was for their own good and being selfish in my martyrdom."

Lex looked up, tired eyes settling on Bruce, the words opening a floodgate in him that in the past he had suppressed in being careful around him. "I do love you. And I can't figure out why right now. Because you decided that we were there too _soon_ , so you decided that both Clark and I would be okay with being captured and debilitated until it was convenient. Neither one of us could pull it together until it was almost too _late_ , and..." Now Clark was dead. Perhaps maybe it needn't have happened. 

"His death is my fault. I know that. I regret that more than you can know." Bruce met his gaze. "The singularity would have destabilized if jolted at all, moved at all without the resonators. Without knowing where it was... But. You're right. I made decision based on... warped perceptions."

"Just what _were_ you thinking? I just... want to know."

"I was thinking that I was doing the right thing. I was thinking..." Bruce took a breath. "I was thinking I was losing you, which I knew, and even tried to make happen to save you from me but I was too weak to go through with it to the end. Every time. I couldn't let you go. And then he came and suddenly it seemed it was really going to happen." "You weren't losing me. I, I'm just confused. I was working things out. I wouldn't, _can't_ leave you, Bruce." Lex ran his hands through his hair, and gave a heavy sigh, stifling a tightness in his chest. "You're my family. I love you. I just... maybe it wasn't right to sleep with the guy, I know. But he really could've been something, better than either of us." "I know that. I know that now. I was wrong about him," Bruce replied heavily. He never admitted he was wrong. It was practically the sign of the apocalypse. "But I don't want you to feel that you _can't_ leave me. I don't want pity. I know that you hate being Batman. I know you're restless and deserve more, and he was... that more. He wanted you, and you wanted him." Lex shrugged his shoulders. "I can't say that. I do... hate being you. I'm not you. I can't ever get things right." "You always get things right," Bruce replied reaching forward to touch him on the arm. "I... just..." Lex jerked faintly, then went still, letting Bruce touch his arm. "No, I'm a shitty Batman, Bruce. But it needs to be out there, so... I can't stop. And I want to. I'm so fucking tired." "For now, Batman can rest. I won't force you to take the mantle," Bruce murmured. "This was my path, not yours. We agreed to change the world but I shouldn't assume my way was the only way." "I've been doing it so damned long that I can't think of any other way to do it. You have-- Batman has a presence. I can't just... stop." Even if he was tired. And maybe 'tired' was code-word for depressed and burnt out and stretched too thin. "Then we'll find another way," Bruce replied. "But for now, you stop this." "I can't. But I do need to leave the city, work on the bat plane. I think I have a lead about where Superman had his base of operations." Lex didn't get to his feet quiet yet, couldn't make himself move. It was probably just as well that Alfred hadn't come in with coffee yet. "His parents indicated that he has high level technology there. The place needs to be dismantled." "Lex. Lex..." Bruce looked frustrated with himself as he pushed himself up in his chair and tried to swing himself onto the sofa. "Dammit." "Dammit?" Lex moved automatically, grasping Bruce's hip and steadying his limp legs so Bruce could carry the motion through. He'd been doing it for so long that he didn't even have to think what he was doing. "I find it frustrating, not being able to move," Bruce settled next to him. "Let me help you. I can do the searches." "I think it's in the Antarctic, Bruce." Lex couldn't help that he slid an arm around Bruce, yearning for old familiarity again. It didn't make things all better, but... His 'brother' did not resist for once. "I'll do some hacking, pour over some satellite data, use Oracle. Let me do this for you." "Sure." But then what would Lex do? Roam Metropolis trying to fill a hole? Fly back to Gotham to do what he was supposed to do? "I want you to rest a while. Alfred is giving you those sidelong looks. You know the ones," Bruce warned him. "The ones that say I've got twenty-four hours to straighten out my act or he'll tackle and sedate me?" Lex laughed quietly, tightly. "He never used to give me those looks. Those are the looks he's supposed to give you." "Mmm, yes." Bruce gave him a faint smile. "I'm sure some of my rests are induced." "Should I be wary of the coffee?" Lex joked faintly. His fingers rubbed at Bruce's shoulders. "Possibly." Bruce smiled a little. "Lex, do you want to go to bed?" Bed. Bed, or bed, or... Bruce was trying. Bruce was trying, really trying, for the first time in years, and Lex couldn't just say 'No, I think I'd rather stare out the window'. "Yeah." "Then would you mind taking me there? If I tried to carry you, we'd be a long time getting there," Bruce replied. "Gladly." Lex turned, shifting to slide an arm beneath Bruce's knees. It was like they were both trying hard, maybe too hard, to retake how things had been before Bruce had turned cold and sharper than Lex had been used to. Before Clark/Superman. "Bruce... I'm sorry. That we're both fucked up." "We wouldn't know what to do with normal if it tried to smack us in the face, Lex. It's not your fault. Perhaps it's not even mine, and I'm certainly not stupid enough to blame Alfred," Bruce held on to him. "Just tell me I haven't left it too late. That I haven't messed up so many things that I can't make it right, and that we're not both so fucked up we can't make this work. " "We can make it work." Lex exhaled as he got to his feet, carrying Bruce with him. "It's not like anyone else can put up with either of us for very long. We come as a packaged set, you know." "Buy one sexy man get another free?" Bruce queried. "Want to remind me how everything works? It's been gathering dust a while." It seemed when Bruce made a decision, he didn't ease into it. He leapt at it. "I'll make sure everything's oiled and working," Lex murmured as he walked down the hall, past the guest bedroom and towards their room. "Shake me if I fall asleep." "It's not a one time only offer," Bruce replied. "It doesn't have to be here and now." "Okay. That's probably best, because... I'm really tired." He hadn't slept for days, and the drive to Smallville and bad had been physically exhausting in both time and the boredom and crowded brain that it gave him. "I know." There was a hint of disappointment, but Bruce disguised it well. He'd had it brought to his attention that he could lose Lex, and more to the point that he wasn't always right. And when he screwed up, a life had been needed to put it right and a world had been in danger. And Lex... wasn't really going to argue those facts down. Didn't want to, because they were things that needed to be said to Bruce. He turned, bumped the door open with his shoulder and part of his back, then headed for the bed to put Bruce down. "Alfred did seem pretty insistent about the coffee. It was drugged, wasn't it?" "Honestly? I don't know. But I have no doubt if you weren't in bed shortly... it would have been," Bruce replied. Lex put Bruce down gently, and stopped long enough to undress himself. "We were raised by a class A conniver." "It explains a lot about us." Bruce replied, pulling off his top. "Combined with genetics and natural personal tendencies, yeah." Lex took Bruce's shirt to fold it, and then absently tossed it on top of his own so he could help Bruce get his pants off. "You're going to have to forgive me for rushing you..." "I'll survive it," Bruce pulled back the cover and twitched it back. "Time to crash out Lex. I'm not letting you out until you've slept yourself out." "Sounds foreboding." Deja vu was setting in, because he was pretty sure he'd threatened Bruce with that a time or two. Before. Maybe he was scaring them all like Bruce used to do. Hell, maybe Lex was turning into a good Batman after all. He shifted, kneeling and bundling Bruce under the sheets with him at the same time. "I'm glad you're safe." "I'm glad you are, too," Bruce murmured and kissed him softly. Soft kisses were all Lex was up for just then. Soft slow kisses, and holding Bruce closer than he'd gotten away with in a while. It was something, slow and idle touches with which to soothe his nerves. Soon all there was were slow gentle kisses and the rest of the world faded around them. Bruce was notoriously focused and it appeared his biggest project had become the salvation of his relationship with his 'brother'. It could have come sooner, but at least Bruce was putting effort in when Lex didn't have a mind to put any in himself. He just did what felt natural, hands stroking Bruce's back, remembering where the cutoff of feeling fell, staying above that line. It had been too long since Bruce had done anything but turn away from that sort of contact, for whatever reason. To feel his skilled hands working again over tense muscle was a revelation. "Missed you," Lex sighed, kissing Bruce's neck. He missed Clark, too, and if that wasn't the most fucked up thought in the world, Lex didn't know what was. Maybe things would've gone to hell after a couple of weeks. Now he'd never know, and Clark would always be a perfect, nice, amazing ghost haunting his dreams. "Forgive me," Bruce murmured in his ear. "I don't need that from the world, but ... I do from you." Lex's hands settled on either side of Bruce's spine and he kissed the underside of Bruce's jaw before settling close, tired and heavy-limbed. "I forgive you, Bruce." Bruce's arms wrapped around him and he had a kiss by way of response. "Rest. Rest now." "Love you, too." He sighed that, and settled in to the comfort of Bruce's arms. Lex could sleep there. He could sleep there for a very long time. 

* * *

Bruce had made a promise to Lex, and he was at least a man of his word, which was why he was tenaciously going over satellite tracking data and lifting whatever he could trying to piece together where Superman's base was now lying empty and unused. There were a lot of people who might look at their relationship and assume that he was dictatorial and controlling and they would be right -- up to a point. And that point was Lex.

Yes, they might argue and he might try to order him around, but Lex would just as easily ignore his attempts and shake them off in a way that only someone who was really close would dare to do. He could do that, whether he knew it or not, because Lex's happiness was paramount to him. And for all the outward signs that he should be relieved that a potential rival had been ruled from the equation, he wasn't. Not least because in the end Superman had knowingly given up everything not just for the world but for his and Lex's personal happiness.

There were very few people on the face of the planet that could make Bruce Wayne ashamed of himself. Lex was one, Alfred was another... and so, apparently was the late Clark Kent. The fact that that two of the three were only ones he trusted and allowed himself to careful spoke volumes about the impact that Clark had made on him.

The worst of it was he had known. The two of them, while Lex was still hoping, praying for a last minute escape, he had exchanged a glance with Superman which had said it all.

Make him happy, Clark had told him and his eyes said it again. Love him and make him happy no matter what because he has sacrificed everything for you.

And then the damn fool had done the same thing for not just Lex but him. As if he had known if he hadn't volunteered the only other choice would have been for Bruce to bleed out his life trying to do the impossible. He had wanted to hate Clark Kent, his rival and yet...

And yet...

He couldn't. In those few fraught moments on the edge of catastrophe together, Clark had made him experience feelings again. They weren't particularly good ones, but they were hot and real and a far cry from the half-life he had been experiencing since he had lost the use of his legs.

He stared at the feedback of the digital output of the satellites again as he had for over a week. The stars were still falling -- debris punched back from the asteroid belt blazing over the skies day and night as shooting stars and meteorites intercepting the atmosphere. It had taken days to reach them even at the velocity the collapsing singularity and explosion had produced, and ever since, the sky had been marking the closest call the Earth had had to date with a natural light show.

Not many hit the Antarctic where he was scanning, not compared to the thousands seen every hour over the equator. He shifted to the next section on his recording, winding it back to the time of the explosion and then winding it forwards. When the meteors reached the earth he was diverted by the fact that he could watch in slow motion as cluster of debris streaked past the satellite whose data feed he had hijacked and downloaded. After hours of blankly watching snow, and more snow, this was something to be savored.

Some of the cluster burned up, but the rest fanned out ready to make impact and pepper the snowy waste with a treasure trove of meteor debris for Antarctic scientists if they could find it in the impact hole.

Only, so suddenly he nearly missed it even in slow motion there was a flash of light from the surface and the meteors... all bar one were vaporized.

That one impacted near the light and for a second he caught just a glimpse of a glow as if an entrance had opened and closed too quickly for the naked eye to follow.

Bruce stared. He rewound the sequence and played it again. He watched it several more times and then ran it through the computer to calculate trajectories and exact grid references until he was completely sure. He'd found it.

And just possibly he'd found him, or what was left of him.

For the happiness of his lover, he didn't allow the dark thought that he could hide this, pretend this never happened and move on just as Clark himself had told him to.

Bruce knew one thing most of all. He knew his brother better than anyone and he knew what would make him happy and what could tear them apart forever. He wasn't going to make that mistake again.

"Lex? Lex, I think I've found something..."

* * *

Perhaps the Fortress might eventually heal him. Perhaps not. He didn't know anymore, let alone could he bring himself to care.

He didn't even know how he survived. He could remember the moment when the singularity ruptured the magnetic shell that Bruce had made, making rainbows in the darkness of space, slicing deep into his arms and his body as it expanded suddenly and then contracted. For one instant he had followed the contraction with his vision and seen the end of all universes in the heart of the black hole as it collapsed and it was enough to send him fleeing from that final end. He'd dropped it then flown against the dragging ripple of warped gravity, flown with every ounce of his being and he was fast, he knew he was fast... 

But not fast enough.

It had been a strange situation caught in the heart of the explosion. Light that empowered him, and darkness that shattered everything in him, both forces using his body as a battleground.

He shouldn't have survived.

He fell through the atmosphere with the rest of the debris caused by that explosion in space. But he somehow ended here through blurred memories of lying naked in the snow, staining it with his blood before waking inside.

Without enough strength to do anything but lie here in the cold and solitude. It was better this way.

No one's life to mess up, no one suspecting him of doing bad things. Of an alien menace and a hidden agenda, or of not caring enough to be at a certain place at a certain time. No Lois nagging him and thinking he was stupid, no... No anything. Just cold, and slowly healing agony.

He'd known what would happen. He'd made Bruce promise, before he went. He'd made him promise to make Lex happy, and he would be out the picture one way or another. And this was the other.

Three days he'd known Lex. Three days and nothing would be the same. Perhaps he would die eventually.

It would take a while, but it wasn't as if his body was pulling together much. He didn't feel like a melted bag of broken bones anymore, but neither could he move.

The Fortress was doing its best to help but it had reached the limits of its capacity. The AI had grown him a protective nest of crystals but that was it and he felt so tired. It told him that every cell and molecule had been twisted and deformed by the incredible forces of the event he had been in and he needed to heal from the inside out. Not that he understood. All he remembered was the rough journey over the floor and knowing he was alone even as he painted a pathway in blood to the Control room.

"Kal-El... Kal-El... there are beings approaching..."

Beings? 

"Registering two humans. Dispose of?"

Humans? Who would come here? The heart of the Antarctic.

He didn't care. But he couldn't kill. 

"N... no."

"They are attempting to breach the wall doors, Kal-El." 

Clark moved faintly in his protective shell, but that was all he could do. He closed his eyes. If they had found the Fortress he could bring them in and have the AI modify their memory. "Let... in."

He was exhausted from just those words, fading out. This was ridiculous. It had been a long time since the disaster in space.

He should've been getting better or dying, but not hanging in between. Clark drifted, until he heard a voice calling for him through the wide hollow halls.

"Clark?! Clark, are you here?!"

He had to be hallucinating that voice. Not that he could answer. All his commands had been a whisper.

Lex couldn't be there. It was the middle of nowhere.

"I see blood... this way! Clark?! Clark, it's Lex."

That sounded really close. Like right next to him. Which would be embarrassing as he was pretty sure that he was naked and his injuries barely disguised by crystals that were acting as body splints. He forced himself to open his eyes. 

"Lex?" It was a weak sound. "Sh... shouldn't be here..."

Lex was wearing a furry hat and looking down on Clark like he was the best thing Lex had ever seen. "God, you're _alive_."

"Not sure," Clark managed. Lex was beautiful. Furry hat and all, especially the furry hat. It made Clark want to smile and he'd never thought he'd do that again, even if he did recover.

"You're alive," Lex assured him and himself, looking back over his shoulder. "So is this place fixing you?"

"Done all it can." Clark felt better just seeing him, though that pronouncement did not sound good. "Rest up to me."

"Can we move you?" Lex touched one of the crystals with a heavily gloved hand, careful as he kept looking at Clark. "Your parents are worried, and I... I'm just amazed you're alive."

"Is best this way," Clark replied. "You... and Bruce. Leave... Lex."

"Bruce? Bruce is coming, but your floors are sort of slippery. We're... a matched set, Clark. That doesn't mean I'm going to leave you here to die."

That was impossible but it made him feel better. 

"Kal-El, your life signs are improving. Do you wish me to release the matrix?"

"Matrix... yes."

It melted rapidly around him, revealing the tangled mess that the singularity had made of his body.

Lex moved forwards, touching his arm gently. "You look heavy, but I'm going to carry you to the Batplane. All right?"

"Why?" Clark asked shivering slightly.

"Even in the middle of Antarctica you can find a naked man," Bruce said behind Lex as he finally caught up with them.

"I know. And you still put up with me," Lex murmured. "Don't ask why, Clark. You know why."

"I do?" Clark blinked at a severe disadvantage in his befuddled state. "But..."

"Lex has a thing for waifs and strays," Bruce murmured.

"Says you," Lex chuckled. "So, can we take him home? Martha said you run on sunlight, Clark, and while Gotham doesn't have it in abundance..."

"You've spoken to my... mother," Clark asked weakly sure now that this was a delusion.

"I can't believe that you just asked me if you could take him home," Bruce said with a drawl. "Was that a prelude to 'Can we keep him?'"

"Yes? To both of you. Yes." Lex grinned at Bruce crookedly, then back to Clark. "I went to give your parents my condolences. They miss you."

"I would've... I just couldn't." This had to be a bizarre hallucination.

"Find something to wrap him in Lex. Superhuman or not, he's still got some open wounds, he's badly hurt and it's chilly out there. We don't want anything vital freezing or snapping off," Bruce said dryly.

"I think the other room was some sort of storage facility. I'll look in there. Back in a minute." Lex, bundled up in a fur-lined leather coat, turned quickly to get something to wrap Clark up in.

"What do you seek, human called Lex?" a soft voice emanated from the walls.

"A fur, or a sheet, or... Something to wrap Clark in." Human called Lex. Lex looked up to the walls, awe in his eyes

"You are to take care of Kal-El?" The voice replied. "He is hurt. And his heart hurts him more. Here is something suitable."

A neatly folded blanket appeared in front of them.

Lex looked up, and then bent to pick up the blanket. "Thank you."

"You are welcome, human called Lex. Be gentle with him. He has spoken of you often in his recovery."

It seemed the AI was capable of some independent thought.

The Kryptonians must've been an amazingly well developed race. Lex nodded as he got the blanket under his arm, and started to walk back towards where Clark was, then said aloud, "Don't worry, we'll be careful with him."

"Thank you." The voice followed him. 

Bruce looked up. "The AI has been filling me in on his injuries," he murmured privately to Lex. "He beats both of us. In our total medical history."

"That's a dubious accomplishment," Lex told them both as he unfurled the blanket.

"Very," Bruce leaned down. "Hold still Clark. Lex, you going to be able to carry him all the way back?"

"Sure. I can't sling him over your lap, I know that," Lex murmured as he laid it over top of Clark for the moment. "I might have to jostle you, Clark, and I'm sorry."

"Mm. S'okay," Clark mumbled. It felt good. Even if it hurt, it felt good that someone was holding him when he'd never expected that ever again.

"You could if I didn't think the motor would burn out under the combined weight." Bruce replied. "I can't wait for you to rebuild the Chair."

"We're still working on the motor," Lex explained as he shifted Clark, rolling him on his side carefully to get the blanket under him better. "It's a long plane ride, but we'll get home in good time."

Clark made a few indeterminate noises as he was bundled up.

"You know, if you want to keep him you have to make sure you look after him, feed him... that sort of thing."

Lex laughed quietly, looking over his shoulder at Bruce while he laid a gentle hand beneath Clark's blanket covered back. "If you say 'change his litter' or 'walk him', I'm putting you in the luggage area and letting the chair ride up front."

"Could have been worse, I could have said 'get him his shots'," Bruce replied. "And I'm flying us home. I'm not having him rattling around in the back of the plane."

"All right. Clark...? Is there anything we should take with us?" Lex looked back to Clark, trying to catch his eyes.

He blinked and shook his head. "...no..." There was nothing else to take. The AI had fixed most of it and then told him it was down to his own immune system to rebuild cell by cell.

"No artifacts? Mementos? I mean,.. we can come back, but it's a long flight and you don't look like you'll be able to make it on your own for a while."

"...no..." There was nothing personal there. Kryptonian things were there, some mementos of battles but not anything else. He closed his eyes tiredly.

"Okay." Lex shifted, picking Clark up carefully. "If you can't hold on, it's okay. We'll get you to a nice bed, some sunlight, get your parents in..."

"..a flea collar and a basket by the fire..." Bruce called back with a hint of humor. "Come on Lex, I can get Alfred to have a sun lamp room set up before we reach home."

"I'm coming. Might be a little slow..." Clark was _heavy_ , but he could carry him. It'd just take a tiny bit longer. "You're okay with this, right, Clark?"

Clark opened his eyes again, giving him a look of complete dazed amazement. "Mm yes."

"Great." Lex smiled down at Clark, smile happier than Clark had seen him since he'd met him. "Good. We'll get you settled in and hopefully you can heal up."

If he had been a little more with it, there were a hundred and one things he might have said to that. But he wasn't convinced it was entirely true, and he didn't want it to end all at the same time. Instead of words, he leaned in against Lex closing his eyes even as the fierce cold of the Antarctic winds met them on their journey back to the Batplane.

He could think about what was going on when they reached their destination, when he woke.

* * *

"Alfred did a good job with the sun lamps don't you think?" Bruce commented blandly as he and Lex made their way to the room where Clark had been installed. "I've learned not to question where he gets these things."

It had been two days since they had rescued Superman from the Antarctic and in all that time, Clark had done little more than sleep. They made brief forays in to check on his process but with the sun lamps as high as they were, they couldn't stay long without risking sunburn.

Just long enough to make sure he drank some nutrient laced water, ate, and that he was moved around from side to side. Lex liked to make sure Clark was semi-aware that he was around, too. "He did a great job."

"You've been a lot happier since our little 'ski trip'," Bruce commented, looking up at him.

"It's amazing what a loss of guilt can do for you," Lex admitted as he peered towards the closed door and the light that was peeking beneath it.

"It wasn't your fault. If anyone's, it was mine," Bruce countered "So nothing to be guilty for. We found him, he survived against all probability, and he's recovering."

"I don't know what we'll do once he's better, but..." Lex smiled a little, looking at Bruce. "Wing it as usual, I guess. I'm glad we found him."

"So am I." Bruce replied. "Let's see how sleeping beauty is this morning hmm? I'll just dim the light to something bearable for us mere mortals." He pressed the controller on the wall and gestured for Lex to lead the way.

"Maybe sleeping beauty's feeling a little better," Lex guessed hopefully. He pushed the door open, and then held it that way for Bruce. "Clark?"

He was a vision of glowing warm light almost glowing from his skin, his dark hair mussed and haloed against the pillow. It was surprising to see him open his eyes and focus on them with some sort of lucidity and clarity. "Hey."

Lex grinned faintly as he walked into the room. "Hey. How're you feeling today?"

"Like my head isn't going to fall off if I nod or shake it," Clark replied looking at them both. He seemed a little surprised to see Bruce there, too. "I think my body is getting there. I just feel a bit tired still."

"Alfred's going to be in with your breakfast in an hour or so, and that should help some. And if it ever stops raining outside I'll personally move you up to the widow's walk so you can get some real sun." Lex wanted to laugh because he was talking too much, nervous and happy at the same time and not quite sure what to do with himself.

"And then I'll get Lex some Valium," Bruce added with an amused look at his over enthusiastic 'brother'. "In case he starts frisking over the lawns in his excitement."

Clark looked a little worried by the statement obviously concerned if he was causing friction between the two of them. But they didn't look unhappy.

"'Frisking' over the lawns? You've been reading Alfred's books again, haven't you? The ones with the paper-bag covers." Lex nodded to himself like it was a definitive statement, grinning as he peered at Bruce.

"Yes, his secret passion for Jane Austen. And there I was thinking it was porn," Bruce replied.

Clarks eyes widened. The thought of Alfred and porn was somehow horrifying and ludicrous.

He fought back a sudden burning need to laugh.

"Hey, Jane Austen is a very scary thing," Lex tsked. He leaned one hand on the bed that Clark was on. "Do you think you'd maybe like something to read while you're in here? Between the three of us we have the great classics, the great histories, and the best back issues of Popular Mechanics."

"But no porn," Bruce cut in. "Not until you're stronger. Alfred would disapprove."

"I'm sure I'll be able to get up shortly," Clark said, lips twitching in a smile "And I won't intrude on you both any longer."

The thought of what he might be ruining between them bothered him a great deal. Especially now. It was practically all he thought about as he lay in their house, a promise made being broken in every moment he was there.

"Clark..." Lex looked at him, looked at Clark's face, trying to make him see what Lex was thinking, "You're not intruding."

"Yes... yes, I am. I mean..." He swallowed. "You and Bruce are good, right?"

"I'd say so," Bruce interrupted.

"Right. Right, so... that's because I... wasn't here." Clark looked at them both, his green eyes pleading with them not to make him spell it out any more.

Lex opened his mouth slightly, pausing with lips barely parted while he tried to come up with what to say. It only took a moment, but it was a long one. "No, it's because we stopped... doing what we were doing that wasn't working. It wasn't because you weren't here. I don't know how this..." Whatever this was. "Is going to work, but it will. Bruce and I are an all or nothing deal, though, so you're going to have to put up with both of us."

The possibility itself was somewhat shocking prospect. "Both of you? But Bruce..."

"Is willing." Bruce was watching him. "Conventional doesn't apply to any of us. Perhaps where two was unstable, three might be more enduring."

Clark had not been ready for any of this. "But you can't stand me. I'm the other... guy."

"An easy way to solve that dilemma is to make anything, or in your case anyone, that's 'other' into 'mine'." He quirked his head with a piercing blue regard at the both of them.

"I told you he was smarter than me," Lex told Clark in an exaggerated whisper. "Just think about it. And think about telling me when you want to see your parents? I think you're out of the clear now, so we can tell them."

Clark nodded. "I... If you think it can work then... yes." He couldn't help himself. He beamed with an amazed delight. "And I'd like my parents to know now... it looks like I'm going to make it."

It was strange and not at all what Clark had expected -- but Lex did seem like he was going to go 'frisk' over the lawn, even if Clark could guess that it was wet, and Bruce seemed amused, a natural low-key sort of happy. Lex just grinned at Clark's assent, briefly clasped Clark's hand in a gentle touch, then pulled away to see if he could drag the landline phone over to the bed.

"You want me to do it now?" Clark looked a little alarmed. "My Mom is going to kill me. Well, maybe not literally but as good as.."

"I'll call and prep her. Or Bruce can prep her. Believe me, she won't be angry," Lex assured as he un-spun some of the excess wire from the base and glanced at Bruce.

"They know you, Lex, and they seemed to deduce who you were so.." Bruce replied moving so the phone could be pulled around. "Call them. They don't deserve to carry on thinking the worst has happened. Now the Daily Planet... that's a different matter. Might do them some good to appreciate Clark by his absence."

Clark groaned. "Perry... Lois...."

"You can tell them you were kidnapped by two mad billionaires," Lex scoffed as he picked the receiver off the hook and dialed the numbers, leaning against Clark's bed and juggling it on his knee.

"When you put it that way Lex, it sounds so sordid," Bruce raised an eyebrow. 

"Kent Farm, Martha speaking." She still sounded tired and weary as if part of her life and strength had gone along with her son.

"Martha...? It's Lex. I have some good news for you."

"Some good news? You're going to be able to make the Memorial after all?" Martha asked and he could hear the puzzlement in her voice.

"There isn't going to need to be a memorial, Martha. After I talked to you and your husband... We located Clark's body, based on some clues I picked up. Only it turned out he was actually alive. In the last couple of days, he's been gaining strength. He's actually coherent today, which prompted me to call you. I didn't want to tell you sooner in case he didn't make it."

"Clark... Clark's alive?" There was a rapid intake of breath and then even though she obvious cover the earpiece, all three of them could hear the half shriek half yell of "JONATHAN!"

Clark groaned. "Both of them are going to kill me."

"They're not going to kill you." Lex more carefully muffled the mouthpiece, then moved his hand and said, "Yes, he's alive. It was pure chance, but he is."

"He's really alive?" Martha sounded shaky even as there was a click and another voice joined her. 

"Lex, you say you found Clark? Can we speak to him?" Jonathan sound no less shaky than his wife.

"Sure. Here he is." Lex smiled as he handed the phone to Clark. Well. Thrust it at him.

"Hi, Mom? Dad?"

Bruce and Lex could hear the excited babble from their seats beside Clark.

"No, no... I'm fine. Well, nearly fine. Okay, I'm getting better, then. Well, no, I can't yet. Mom... Mom, no, it's okay, Bruce and Lex have been looking after me really well, and I'm going to be fine.... uhuh. I know. Yeah. I know it was stupid, but someone had to do it. You know the answer to that, Mom... because I can." There was a long near silence for a moment and his eyes glistened a moment. "Uhuh. Mm. I... love you, too. I'm sorry to worry you, I... I'll ask Bruce and Lex."

He turned to them both. "They want to come see me, is that okay?"

"When do they want the helicopter to pick them up?" Lex tipped his head down so he could look at Clark better, grinning when he brushed hair out of his eyes.

"They can send a helicopter. Yeah... well, anytime." He smiled a little. "Sure you can, that's why they're mad eccentric billionaires... Okay. Okay I'll see you then. Love you."

He handed the phone back. "As soon as it can be there. I think Mom just needs to see me in the flesh, you know?"

"I understand that." Lex hung it up, still looking down at Clark. "So, why're we mad eccentric billionaires?"

"Because you have a helicopter that can go pick up two organic farmers from Kansas at a moments notice?" Clark grinned up at him and at Bruce. 

"Not to mention the alien in the tanning salon here," Bruce added. "I'll go sort out the transportation and tell Alfred there's an appetite to feed here now you're conscious." He wheeled himself away out of the room, not waiting for a response.

Lex watched Bruce leave, then got up to put the phone sort-of back where it belonged. "This was probably a lot very fast for you, Clark, and I'm sorry for that."

"I'm a bit... uh..." Clark looked up at him. "Shell-shocked, I guess. I wasn't even completely sure this wasn't some dream or pain hallucination until not long ago."

"What made you realized that it wasn't either?"

"You kept coming back," Clark replied softly. "I don't understand, Lex. You and Bruce are meant to be living happily ever after. Together. I went off thinking that at least I had made that right .. corrected what I had screwed up."

"First of all... Bruce and I have been 'screwed up' for years. We fight. We get angry with each other. It happens, I think most normal people that love each other do that. It..." Lex glanced towards the door, pushing his hair back and tucking some of the curls behind one ear. "I think I love you. I know that I want to get to know you better and be your friend. There's a lot all of us can learn from each other, and I think we all need some support to keep doing what we do more days."

"You think you love me?" Clark was staring at him. "I... but it was one night... two rather fraught days. I thought it was just me..."

"It wasn't." Lex leaned on his hand as he kept looking at Clark. "You're almost Bruce's polar opposite. You're so... optimistic. There's something amazing about you that I can't explain."

Clark actually blushed a little color into his cheeks. "And Bruce is really okay? I mean, I kinda shouted at him. I didn't think I had anything to lose then. I thought one way or another, I wouldn't see you again."

"Bruce is really okay," Lex confirmed. "He needed to be shouted at -- Alfred and I hadn't been doing much of it. We... things are settled now. The air needed to be cleared."

"He's uh... very... um..." Clark hesitated looking for the right sort of word. "Dominant, isn't he?"

Lex gave a short laugh as he settled back down on the edge of the bed. "Yeah. How'd you guess?"

"It's the way he looks at us. Both." Clark replied. "And he makes decisions... and he was overly fond of that pet analogy back at the Fortress." He smiled shyly up at Lex.

"You're not supposed to remember that," Lex smiled. "But... that's just how he is. I'm somewhere in the middle, I guess. Workaholic. Your mom said you were, too."

"Well it's hard not to be. You and my Mom seem to be getting on very well," Clark observed. "That means you're ensured a lifetime supply of cookies and mothering."

"Cookies and mothering, huh? You have good parents." Lex's fingers strayed a little, brushing through Clark's hair idly, stroking. He liked to do that with Bruce, too. "They actually told me a lot, possibly more than you're comfortable having me know. Just thought I'd warn you."

"Like?" Clark liked the feel of fingers in his hair, that much was obvious from his expression.

"Like... how your dad had to use garden clippers to cut your hair when you were in high school."

"Oh god," Clark closed his eyes and chuckled. "All my embarrassing stories? Mom didn't get out the baby pictures?"

"They were a little too teary-eyed for that. But I think that was for the next time I saw them. They... were really glad to talk to someone who understood. And it made me appreciate that I've always had a partner to rely on when things got bad. Not just someone to confide in, but someone who really understood because they did it, too."

Clark nodded slowly. "It's difficult to explain. I've never had... anyone like that. Not even my parents know all that and they helped me make it through my Smallville years. My mom's died and been brought back to life. My Dad has had superpowers for a while which nearly killed him. They've dealt with a lot, with me and the general weirdness knowing me brings. But they still don't know."

"It's different when you're out there every day -- or night. It's different when you have the local police shooting at you," Lex agreed

"It's different when you see the face of your best friend, and the person you thought you were in love with when you tell them you are an alien." Clark was still watching him with a clear green gaze. "Aside from Mom and Day you're the only person... people I know who haven't flinched at that knowledge."

"There's more of us in the world, Clark. Other 'Superheroes'. Bruce and I aren't much for reaching out to people, but... They're out there, and they know what it's like to be freakish. You can't exactly draw a line of 'acceptable' when you have healing abilities like mine." His fingers moved again, twitching through soft curls. "Have you met Green Lantern?"

"Once. If Bruce hadn't have made a magnetic bubble for that thing, I was going to go grab him and get him to think one up for me," Clark leaned into his hand unconsciously. "I'm not sure he knew what to make of me."

"His lantern comes from an organization run by a collection of aliens. They exist -- not your people, that I know of, but... No one should doubt your willingness to help because you're an alien. Particularly since you grew up more normally than Bruce and I did."

"Ah yes, but most people don't know that, and Smallville wasn't particularly normal," Clark sighed a little. "Krypton is gone. It exploded and I was the only one who escaped -- older Kryptonians were bound to the planet. The fact remains, Lex, I _am_ different, and one way or another I've ended up alone. I... more than half wondered if it were even possible for a human to love me."

"I used to wonder that," Lex mused, smiling at Clark as he tucked a short curl behind Clark's ear. "If it helps, I think I love you. I know I'm not just going to let you walk off."

"Is that because I can't actually walk?" Clark smiled. "God, Lex.... you're amazing, you know that? I feel selfish for wanting you."

"You say that now, but you haven't seen me in a shitty mood," Lex warned. "Or when I start to make things. Which reminds me, you might not see me for a couple of days. Bruce needs his chair rebuilt, and I'm the man to do it."

"Well if Mom and Dad are here," Clark replied. "I can spend time with them. Well, lie here with them here. I've never been so incapacitated. And Bruce... If Bruce and you hadn't done what you did, there would have been no world left to save. He deserves as much of the accolade as Alfred tells me the death of Superman is getting. You, too, Lex."

"We don't get much by way of accolade," Lex shrugged. "We get grudging respect, and that's all we need. Praise is too much risk."

"Then we should at least recognize it among ourselves," Clark replied. He reached up to brush back Lex's hair with a smile. "You really think ...three of us?"

"Yeah. Bruce... has taken a shine to you. He'll express things in his own way, given time." Lex smiled at the brush of hair.

"Should I be worried?" Clark asked smiling.

"I'd be lying if I said no." Lex was smiling, too, but looked over to one of the lamps, making sure the setup was still in proper place. 

"Thanks. You go see to Bruce's chair, I'll work on my tan and rebuilding every singularity warped cell in my body." Clark didn't seem unduly concerned. "I'll be fine if you do one thing for me..."

That brought Lex's eyes back to Clark's face. He was trying admirably hard to not stare at Clark's body, and had managed so far to not do it at all. "Get you a towel for when your parents show up?"

"They've seen it all before. I hated clothes when I was younger," Clark replied. "I was thinking more like a ... kiss?"

"Might still need that towel." Lex leaned down, upside down in relation to Clark, and pressed his mouth to Clark's.

It was an unusual position, but one that didn't stop Clark from responding enthusiastically. "Mm."

Warmth, taste, gentle and pervasive not the hard burning of energy that had tried to tear him apart.

Lex sucked softly at Clark's bottom lip before he pulled away. "We'll make this work."

Clark smiled happily. "Yeah. Yeah.... I think we can." As if the kiss told him that in and of itself.

Maybe it did. Lex looked down at Clark with hazed, happy eyes, and then shifted to get to his feet. "I'll go see where your breakfast went to. You need to be under these lights at full power until your parents get here so you'll be coherent."

Clark nodded trailing fingers over his hand. "Yeah. Thank you, Lex. For... for coming after me."

"It was a hunch. And a little help from atmospheric monitoring cameras and Bruce's obsessive nature." Lex squeezed Clark's hand gently. "Rest, okay?"

"Resting," Clark let go and obediently closed his eyes, though the faint smile lingered.

"Good." Lex lingered in the doorway for a moment, and then closed the door. Moments later, he brought the lights up to full power, leaving Clark basking in sunlight.

* * *

Clark wasn't used to 'having to rest'. He was bad at it. Worse, Alfred had declared, than Master Bruce and Master Lex put together once he became mobile. As far as the rest of the world knew Superman was still 'dead', if only because he hadn't shown any sign of his powers since his recovery. Bruce said that was simply because his body had used a massive amount of energy to keep him alive.

The unspoken comment was whether it was going to ever come back at all. He had a great deal of empathy for Bruce in these last few weeks. Not being able to fly, to speed or use any of those abilities that had been a part of him was infinitely disturbing, and their loss was something that made him feel peculiar and restless. He could appreciate for the first time what losing something that was natural to you could do to someone.

It was as if it was inside of him, he just didn't know how to wake it up again. Maybe he didn't want to. Alfred had also suggested that perhaps he didn't want his powers back because being Superman had hurt. A lot.

He wasn't kidding about that.

He turned restlessly on the couch, trying to sleep like a good recovering superhero. Everything felt sensitive and a bit achy.

He'd kept in contact with his parents, and accidentally, Lois. She couldn't figure out _what_ the hell was going on, and she hadn't gotten around to visiting him either, but he'd feigned being in serious traction when she'd made his mom hand her the phone.

She'd almost taken that 'kidnapped by two mad billionaires' thing seriously.

Lex had allowed him to make up some story about Clark saving his life and being injured in the process, which was just as well. He hadn't had to feign exhaustion from that conversation at least, but it saved him the decision of when to let Clark Kent come back from the dead.

He was in a half state of drowsiness, wondering what Lex and Bruce were doing even as he lay there with his eyes closed. He felt hot suddenly, and there was an odd tight prickle behind his eyes and a roaring in his ears and then..

A feeling. A compulsion. A need from outside and inside that couldn't be ignored. There was no thinking to be done.

He just moved, even if he wasn't sure where he was moving to. Out of the Mansion, out of the country side that surrounded the ever-creeping city of Gotham.

It was oddly like a dream. It had the urgency that dreams held and he hadn't flown since the singularity so it probably was a dream- especially as he could see some large industrial building blazing and it seemed to be warped and unreal to him.

He could hear a voice bellowing, "LEX! LEX!" and glanced in the slow syrupy time that existed in his world of speed, to see Bruce being forcibly restrained from trying to enter the blazing building even as he shot straight in without any thought.

Fire like the heart of that star in his face, but the feeling pulled him in deeper through the destruction. Dream flames that licked and caressed with a faint tickle as he landed and looked around to see what had brought him here.

Slow motion flames touched at him, and all around him there was a crumbling of the wooden support beams that held the ceilings aloft. There was noise, struggling, choking coughs from beneath one of the fallen beams.

Lex. Not Lex in a batsuit, but Lex in a suit, Lex, trapped and struggling to move.

Interesting problem. There were a couple of other people not pinned. And if he took out the beam they would be crushed. A blur later and the area was clear and those people rescued if startled. Then he was back with Lex, standing in front of him, what little clothes he had been wearing burning off.

"Lex..." His bare hand gripped the beam.

"Oh, god..." Lex struggled like a fish out of water, trying to get free the moment he saw Clark grasping the beam. "Help..."

"The place will be coming down," Clark replied reaching with his other arm to draw him close. "Are you hurt?"

"Some..." Lex had to struggle to stand, leaning heavily into Clark. He coughed, the thickening smoke making it hard to breath. Which it shouldn't have been doing in a dream.

"Hold on to me, love," Clark gripped around him. "We're leaving. Through the roof that's coming down on us." He raised shielding hand above him to punch things away. "Ready?"

"Ready..." More coughing, but Lex did hold on, shakily.

It was in the nick of time; everywhere around them was a furnace and they were rising up through the flame and punching through the roof to the sky even as they arced over to where he remembered Bruce being. That was what he should do. His blue t-shirt was in smoldering tatters against him, his red boxers in the same state but the colors against his soot streaked and still livid scarred body was familiar enough to call up memories of who had performed the rescues.

"Lex, are you hurt?" Bruce leaned forward as far as he could go the moment they landed.

"Little burnt, hard to br..." A cough cut him off, but Lex was staring at Clark, staring at Bruce. "S-superman?"

Clark frowned. Superman? A realization was starting to dawn that this wasn't some dream of his powers. "Where... where am I?"

His confusion was really and it showed in the captured images of bewilderment that the news team who had been there to film the latest business venture of WayneLuthor Enterprises was filming with glee.

"The GothamChem processing plant 3 -- which was going to become part of WayneLuthor Enterprises, but as it blew up, possibly not." Bruce grabbed at his arm his blue eyes very distinctly commanding Clark to follow his lead. "The world thought you were dead, Superman, what happened?"

Clark shook his head. "I... I don't remember. I've been hurt... I think."

I think. No, he knew where he'd been, but there was knowing, and doing what he'd just done. Saved Lex on a whim of feeling, an instinct that he'd thought was a dream. Lex was still half-holding onto him, even as a paramedic edged towards the group.

"Th... thanks."

"You're welcome," Clark replied pulling himself together, even if his eyes as they looked at Lex held the clear message of 'Oh shit, oh shit... what have I done, how did I get here?' 

"I best leave. I appear to be lacking undamaged... clothes."

He looked down at himself.

"Why did you come, Superman?" Bruce asked him placing his hand on his arm.

"Because someone needed me," he replied and recognizing a good exit line, he took off and streaked back to the Manor more than a little unsettled.

The manor was silent and quiet, except for the sounds of Alfred in the front library. How had he _done_ that? Flown off and bam, he'd... saved Lex. He guessed.

So much for his powers being gone forever. Lex had needed him. He had reacted without thinking and gone to him. Maybe he'd heard Bruce, maybe he'd heard Lex...

What if he _hadn't_?

That was the part that left him feeling shaken. What if he hadn't heard Bruce or Lex or whatever it was that'd alerted him? No one was going in to save those people, and Lex had been trapped. The building would've collapsed on him. Lex would've died.

All his secret wishes to lose the responsibility of being Superman had been overruled by his subconscious and that familiar weight of the reason why settled on him. Because he could. Because he could save them, he had to. Because he could flew the singularity away from the world it had to be him, because he loved people on it too much to let them die. He could have had his normal life, but only at the expense of the lives Superman could have saved. Starting with Lex.

If the responsibility was the price for having Lex, then it looked like spandex was once again in his future.

"Master Clark...?" Alfred called up the stairs to him, and Clark could hear footsteps. It was worth it, Clark guessed, if he could keep the people that he loved alive.

"Yes?" Clark was aware that he was just staring at his soot hands and he was reeking of fire -- on Alfred's clean carpets too. "I'm... I'm up here."

"Phone call for you from Master Bruce." Alfred came closer, and knocked on the door to Clark's sunning room-cum-bedroom. "I didn't think that you were up."

"Um," Clark said as he opened the door revealing his state. "You might have said that I made a minor trip out. " He reached for the phone a little unsteadily.

His eyebrows went up a little as he held the phone out to Clark. "Minor trip through the local foundry, perhaps?"

"Something like that." He cleared his throat. One day he would surprise Alfred. Somehow. "Um, hi Bruce?"

"I don't think that you could have done that better if you'd planned it, Clark."

"I... don't even really know what I did, Bruce," Clark confessed. "I was asleep! Well, dozing."

"We're glad that you came, because you saved Lex's life. I don't care how you did it."

"Is he okay?" Clark asked. "Was he badly hurt?"

"Smoke inhalation, but they're going to release him probably as soon as they reach the hospital. I'm following behind in my car right now."

"You'll be home later right?" He wanted to see him to check he was okay, probably much as Bruce wanted to. "I... want to see him."

"I'll bring him home. I suppose it's for the best that the plant caught fire before we bought it."

"Yeah. Silver lining huh?" Clark replied smiling. "I'll see you both later. Alfred's given me a look about being sooty on the carpet. I'd best clean up."

"You should. And rest -- I'd be amazed if you didn't find yourself tired after that show of energy."

"I will, Bruce, thanks. See you later," he said as he hung up. He did feel tired, though a better sort of tired than he had been feeling. Perhaps he would have a bath and then just wait for Lex in their bed. He grinned a little. Yeah, that sounded like a suitable reward.

Alfred smiled faintly as he took the phone from Clark. "Shall I draw you a bath?"

"You don't have to, Alfred, I can do it myself," Clark said tentatively. "I feel kind of weird having someone else do it."

"And I feel a bit weird when someone does it themselves." He looked at Clark again, the charred clothing, the sooty carpet, then shook his head. "As you wish, however."

"Thanks, Alfred," Clark smiled at him and stepped towards the bathroom. Yeah he'd be ready and waiting when they came home.

* * *

The paramedics hadn't just let Lex 'leave', no. They'd decided that since he was a paragon of the city, they needed to whip out the kid gloves and make sure that he was physically a-okay. That had meant everything from x-rays to listening to him breathe before they'd let him leave.

All in all, the physician had been astonished by two things -- Lex's level of fitness, and how many broken bones he suspected Lex had had. To the two of them, Lex could only smile and say it was possible that he'd had some fractures that'd healed -- he was deeply devoted to studying martial arts, after all.

That 'my body is a temple' stuff always made Lex want to go home and have a whisky. Or smoke, just because he could, because he was alive. But he was going to finish helping Bruce up the stairs and then he was going to get in bed with Bruce and thank Clark (while in bed with him) and probably pass out.

It was traditional after a near death experience to want good sex. And so far they hadn't reached that point with the three of them. Somewhere along the line Clark had been invited to sleep in their bed and they may have done a little fooling around but not all three of them. No reason why that would be different tonight.

Although Bruce was giving him sideways glances and that faint hint of a smile that told him to nap on the way home because he might need his strength.

So he had, because he was weary after healing up that fast. And, he was probably one of the few men who could sleep while in the passenger seat of a car that Bruce was driving.

It took a certain tolerance and nerves of steel to do so. Still, it meant he felt a little more human when they got home and had run the gauntlet of Alfred's concern, and now finally they were getting to bed.

"Alfred said he's been asleep pretty much since earlier," Bruce murmured. "I expect he'd be reasonably well rested."

"I'm amazed that he showed up like that. I'm pretty sure he didn't really know what he was doing when he saved me." Lex held the door for his brother, and then moved towards the bed.

"He said as much," Bruce replied twitch a little with the tug of smile. "Sleep-rescuing -- a superhero problem, huh?"

"Only a superhero," Lex agreed as he sat heavily on the mattress and started to take his boots off. "I'm amazed."

"Got any plans for the hero's reward?" Bruce murmured watching him undress.

There was a thud when Lex gently tossed his boots over where they belonged. "Maybe? If we can wake him."

"Oh, yes? Care to enlighten me?" Bruce's voice had dropped, becoming deep and a little predatory.

"Well. If you're up to it, too, I was thinking..." Lex started to unbutton his shirt. "We could, maybe... you know."

"Mm?" Bruce raised an eyebrow. "We could do what?" He was teasing, his eyes bright. Near death seemed to do that to him

"Have sex? Try to?" Lex said a little hopefully. He wasn't sure exactly how Bruce would react, so now was as good a time to ask as ever.

"A novel thought." More teasing. There was a pause. "I have given the matter some thought and I believe there are a few things maybe we should try together depending on... cooperation."

"Cooperation," Lex repeated, looking at Bruce with amused, maybe excited questioning glances.

"I ought to at least ask our other triad member if he wants to, " Bruce replied. "I know your tastes, after all, and I think I know what he'll accept... but..."

"Always polite to ask," Lex agreed. "Do you need help undressing?"

"Please," Bruce acknowledged. "If you don't want me involved Lex, just say. You know what I can be like."

"Fussy," Lex agreed as he moved to kneel down in front of Bruce. He started to get Bruce's shoes off, rubbing at his "brother's" legs a little absently. "And domineering. He's guessed that about you, you know."

"And did he seem put out by that?" Bruce replied, shifting as best as he could to help and stroking his hair.

"To be honest... Far from it," Lex murmured. He looked up at Bruce, and started to unbutton his shirt, taking a moment to stroke the muscled chest that he was revealing.

Bruce smiled. "Good. I had a feeling that would be the way of it. I'd be willing to bet that he wants to hand over responsibility. He gets enough of responsibility in his superhero life. And you... like that, too, don't you?"

"Always have. Since way back before we found other uses for spandex." Lex let Bruce finish with his shirt, and moved to unbuckle his belt.

"Lets see if I've still got that touch, shall we?" Bruce replied. "Legs or not."

"Legs are a nice addition, but you don't need them to be you, Bruce," Lex assured as tugged at Bruce's slacks.

"No, perhaps not," Bruce replied as the pants came off. "I always did have an overactive imagination."

"Batsuit. I'd never guess," Lex teased softly. "I remember when it was rubber... Here, let me help you up." Once he was in the big bed, Lex knew Bruce could move himself around smoothly.

"Thank you," Bruce settled near the lump that was Clark sleeping happily in the middle. "I think you should wake him up, don't you?"

"Mmhm. Since he saved my life, I think I should get the honor..." Lex shifted to the other side of Clark, and pulled the sheets slowly off of Clark's head.

Clark looked like an angel when sleeping. His dark hair tended to curl messily and his long lashes seemed perfect against his cheek even as his lips were parted just slightly. There was something though that made Lex wonder if he was asleep at all. Clark's breath had stilled a little in anticipation as he looked down at him.

So he leaned in close, face to face with Clark, and whispered, "You're faking it."

Clark smiled with his eyes closed. "And I wanted to catch you with a kiss," he said as he opened them.

A kiss was what Lex happily gave Clark, peeling back the bedding cocoon. Slow and easy, mouth against mouth. Lex liked the way that Clark's lips were hot against his own, moist and firm. He had a gorgeous mouth. "Thanks."

"For?" Clark murmured and then nearly jumped as he felt a pressure on his other side.

"For saving his life. We both need to thank you for that," Bruce murmured.

"We weren't expecting you to show up," Lex agreed, looking down at Clark. "I thought... that I was going to die, along with a lot of other people."

"That couldn't happen," Clark said immediately. "Seemed to get the old powers woken up even if I didn't for a bit. Just don't let me see the news for a bit. I don't think I can stand seeing myself like that on public television."

"Mostly naked?" Lex looked over Clark's shoulder to Bruce, smiling. "He watched in the waiting room. Apparently, we both looked drugged in it."

"The truth is the truth. Although I think the genuine confusion shows through. I think people are going to assume poor Superman has been lying half dead in a ditch somewhere all this time and heroically roused himself from a semi-coma for a cry for help."

"Which works well for you," Lex agreed. Real well. Maybe some of the doubt would fade if people thought of Clark that way.

"Half-dead in a billionaire's mansion isn't quite so heroic," Clark smiled looking back over his shoulder at Bruce who was close up behind him. "Um, Bruce?"

"Yes?"

"Not that I mind, but you seem a little close tonight?"

Bruce smirked over his shoulder at Lex.

"I thought you were eavesdropping." Unless he'd only been half listening, in which case the upper hand was really theirs.

"Well not really. Just aware you were there," Clark replied looking at them curiously. "Why?"

"Oh, nothing." Lex made a show of winking at Bruce. "Let me finish getting undressed. You look like you took a nice long shower."

"I did. Alfred said that I... mm.." Clark derailed as Lex was getting creative in his undressing, and then jerked as Bruce pressed kisses to the back of his neck. "Uhn!"

"Consider this a two way thank you. A..." Lex paused to shimmy out of his pants. "A hero sandwich."

"And I have a refinement for it later," Bruce murmured. "But that's between you and I, Clark, a little surprise for Lex."

"A surprise?" Clark seemed a little overwhelmed.

A refinement? A surprise? Oh, that sounded interesting to Lex, and while he wanted to ask... he knew that any secret Bruce wanted to keep was worth waiting for. Unless it involved being kidnapped, but they'd talked about those sorts of secrets. "A surprise?"

"Oh yes, you entertain Clark a moment while I murmur in his ear," Bruce smirked. "I'll need a rather large favor from him."

"Far be it from me to ask one of those." Lex shifted to kiss at Clark's neck, pressing close with a purpose. He knew just what he could do to 'entertain' Clark while simultaneously not eavesdropping.

"Mmm..." Clark rumbled against him even as Bruce whispered in his ear in among kisses. Whatever he was saying was spreading a blush down from Clark's face, down his neck and torso, and brought his cock to attention. 

Bruce did have a way of doing that.

"Clark, is this down here for me?" Lex moved a hand to cup it, smiling against Clark's chest.

"Uh-huh..." Clark jolted a little at the touch.

"Impatient, Clark, aren't we?" Bruce purred from behind him. "So you want to?"

"Yeah... yeah, I think it would be... cool."

Cool. Lex grinned even as he wrapped his hand around Clark's dick, and gave it a slow stroke. "Mmm."

"Shall we let him in on the secret, Clark?" Bruce murmured. "Something mild to start with Lex, but interesting. I thought some of our other pursuits might be too much for young Clark, though he did blush exceptionally well when I mentioned them. We'll save that for another time... besides, with Clark, it might need some preparation."

"Mild, huh? I'm never sure where your definition of mild is, Bruce..." Lex slipped his free hand to rub over Clark's hip, still idly stroking Clark's dick. "You'll need to share, since I don't think I can guess."

"Tonight I am going to make love-by-proxy to you. Clark has agreed to have a rider controlling his every move," Bruce smiled at them both. "The weight won't bother him at all and he will be having... intimate instructions."

Bruce knew him too too well. It was already a pretty mental image for Lex, and it hadn't even happened. "And... Clark's good with that?" Lex peered up at Clark hopefully. It really would be a Hero sandwich that way.

Clark nodded. "Yeah." It didn't stop him blushing though even if it was with a smile. "Like I said it sounds... cool. Well, hot. Really hot. And Bruce says you'll really like it?"

"I can't imagine not liking it. I like you, I like Bruce, the two of you working together..." Lex pressed a kiss just beside Clark's nipple. "Hot."

"Bruce, there's a flaw in your plan... if he keeps kissing me like this..."

"You'll last longer when you come to give him his just desserts," Bruce murmured. "Don't worry, we'll make him challenge the sound proofing..."

"I bought Alfred a pair of really good noise-blocking headphones last Christmas," Lex smiled against Clark's chest. There was something about moving in the dark, body to body, that was arousing. He had enough night sight to see what he needed to see, but closing his eyes was just as good for feeling the pounding of blood in his ears.

"Push him back, Clark, and shift over him, hands on his shoulders firmly." He could hear the faint whisper just as Clark acted almost immediately. Gentle, strong hands pushed him back and Clark moved, Bruce clinging to his back, over him.

Lex looked up at the both of them, Clark's strong arms holding his shoulders down while Bruce's strong arms were wrapped around Clark, teasing at skin. "Hey."

Clark was smiling at him, barely noticing Bruce's weight, but noticing what he was doing with his hands across his chest while he was trying to do what he was instructed. "Bruce!"

"Shush, don't break character.." Bruce chided with a smile in his voice. "You look beautiful tonight, Lex, I thought I'd lost you... I want to feel every part of you, be in every part of you... you want that, too, don't you?" His voice was a low half dangerous voice in the dark light and Clark reacted to it as much as Lex did.

It was just something about Bruce, something he could do with amazing ease. Lex nodded, staring up at both of them. They looked gorgeous that way, breathtaking. "I haven't felt you like that in too long." Either of them, Clark or Bruce.

"You will tonight," Bruce said and murmured to Clark. "Kiss him down the right side of his neck. There a small hollow at the base. Suck there hard for a moment then flick your tongue over it. It drives him wild."

It really wasn't fair to have someone give away all your sexual secrets, especially as while that happened Bruce lips descended from the darkness to claim his mouth at the exact moment that Clark reached that vital spot.

He groaned helplessly into Bruce's mouth, arms coming up to half-wrap around them both. Kissing and that spike of feeling sliding right down his spine, settling into his balls with a shivery feeling.

His hands were against Bruce's back, and there the shift in warmth that betrayed Clarks skin.

"Lips as sweet, as heady as the finest wine.." Bruce murmured, taking another taste breathlessly as Clark sent shivers through Lex with the flick of his tongue. 

"Soft, Clark... soft over his collar bone... follow it around, hand in his hair stroking."

Bruce knew him too well, and was reveling in the opportunity to kiss him at the same time as he reacted to what Clark was doing.

"Ohhh, fuck. Fuck, Bruce. Not fair. God, Clark, that..." Kisses cut him off, stole his words as he clutched them both tight and pressed against Clark's body.

Bruce chuckled. "Oh yes, I think I like this little experiment..." The voice was a half feral growl of desire and Clark quivered against Lex, his own sounds muffled against Lex's skin.

"Clark, his left arm, down the inside to the wrist. Softly down there and then bite at the skin. I think he has thwarted vampire fantasies..."

Lex could barely hear the instructions but as Bruce shifted to his neck to hit the other point with teeth near his jugular, it was a miracle he could hear anything.

There was a rushing throb of blood in his ears, crowding out his senses, muffling his thoughts with bursts of arousal that crawled up and down his spine, settled in his belly, made his balls twinge and his cock throb.

It didn't abate; Bruce would whisper the secrets of his lover's body and Clark, an ever astute student would obey the direction, tasting Lex's skin and feeling the pressure on his own back as Bruce reacted as well.

He was shown what would make Lex groan, what would make him writhe when it came to his chest. He could feel the brush of soft hair over his shoulder as Bruce leaned to lay siege to his Lex's other nipple as Clark attended to the one on the left.

Lex didn't stand a chance.

How could he, when he was being made love to by two men? Two men that he cared and worried about, even if he still felt like he was getting to know the one, and had known the other for decades. Impassioned arousal didn't distinguish between their touches, not with Bruce directing Clark and leaning over him to join in. His hands moved, held on to Clark's shoulder on one side and Bruce's on the other.

"Please..."

"Are you enjoying this, Lex?" It was strange how Bruce could speak in that low half amused voice when there was still a hot mouth latched on to him. "Mm? Does it feel good with so many hands on you?"

A touch trailed on his leg far away from the heat of Clark's hands on stomach.

He shifted his head on the pillow, barely managing a nod in amongst the needs to arch, press, and clutch. "Yeah. Yeah, this is... So hot, God..."

"I don't think I've seen you like this for some time." Damn Bruce for always sounding in control even though there was an undeniable thread of arousal in his voice. "Now just imagine what it's going to be like with two mouths on your cock... let that imagination wander."

There was some more whispering to Clark and the sensations started to move inexorably downwards.

He could here more soft instruction on the cusp of hearing and a small chuckle from Clark before they settled in that area. And appeared to be trying to kiss each other around his erection.

Lex couldn't _not_ watch. There was a hot mouth on the left side, a cooler, skilled mouth on the right, and ever so often the touches tangled, overlapped in sensation while he watched the two of them kiss each other. Black hair and tanned skin tinted cool in the sparse outside light, the two of them gorgeously entwined together around his cock. Maybe, maybe he should've felt a spark of jealousy, but he couldn't. Not when it felt so damned good and looked so damned hot.

He was aware that it was as much a show as it was sensation. The glitter of Bruce's eye glancing up towards him told him his long time lover was fully aware of what he was doing and as much stimulated by that awareness as he was by the kisses. Clark... who would have thought Clark could take to this so easily? It seemed his trust, once given, was absolute.

He was beautiful there, and there was a part of Lex that wanted that image of the pair of them soft in moonlight and shadow preserved forever. Maybe something to suggest for another time.

He nearly missed the first slick touches behind his balls. It wasn't obvious which one of them had done it.

What was obvious to Lex was that he wasn't going to resist. He stretched his legs out, spread them. Lex wanted to open up to the pair of them, spread himself wide for their enjoyment that was his own. It was better than hard one-night stands that didn't even last a full night -- it was laying in his own bed in his own home with his longtime lover and Clark overtop of him. It was heavenly, and Lex could only groan a little, one hand fisting in the sheets. "Yes..."

"Here, Clark..." he heard Bruce murmur. "Suck here, right to the tip. He always bears down with his ass when you tongue the top of his cock. I'm not sure why, but... I'll take care of the ass for now."

The warm lips moved up his shaft as directed, engulfing the head of his erection and teasing it with a very agile tongue.

"Uhn, I feel like an... oversexed science experiment..." Bruce was hanging off of Clark with one hand missing in the darkness and resurfacing between his ass cheeks. The worse part was that when Clark did that, sucked like that, Lex did _exactly_ what Bruce had said he'd do

Bruce laughed in a low chuckle as his fingers, slick with lube pushed into Lex. "I don't forget all my tricks Lex, even if I haven't used them for a bit. They talk of the rush of scientific endeavor. Are you feeling that rush now?" The fingers moved inside of the other man slowly and deliberately.

Clark was still sucking, and Lex heard the occasional 'slurp' that emphasized the spike of sensation. He clenched down on Bruce's fingers then, and they kept moving despite that. Three fingers, and it felt so good. But with both of them over him, Lex could only choke on noises. "More, fuck, more Clark, more, Bruce, I..."

"Oh more Clark is it?" Bruce murmured. "Far be it from me to deny you anything. Clark up on your hands and knees a moment. We have to get into position so Lex won't be disappointed."

Clark's mouth left Lex's cock. "Don't want him disappointed. Are you going to...?"

"Yes, you sure you don't need preparation?" Bruce murmured as Clark raised up over Lex a little, his own erection warm and hot against Lex's skin.

"Go ahead."

Bruce shifted and Clark gasped a moan over their lover, shaking slightly.

Lex's hands came up, clutched at Clark's sides. He could feel the muscles of Clark's sides shivering, the muscles of his belly tense. "Bruce, you're... God, does that feel good, Clark?"

"Y... Yes," Clark's voice was low and rough as if he was trying to focus

"You... are going to have to try... his ass," Bruce managed, even his fabled calm a little ruffled. "Fuck... the heat, so tight. Lex... lube him before he collapses on you. His body temperature just jumped. Mmm."

Only Bruce would notice something like that. Lex fumbled, feeling around on the sheets for the tube of lubricant. Off to the left, good. Lex grabbed it shakily, and squeezed some onto his hands. Then he reached between their bodies, grabbing firmly at Clark's dick to smooth lubricant over it. "C'mon..."

"Ah!" Clark thrust against his cool slick hands. "Lex! I need..."

"He needs to be in you." Bruce's hands were teasing Clark. "But you're going to do this my way, aren't you, Clark? So hold yourself back... Not too soon..."

Lex groaned, even as he rubbed a slicked thumb over the head of Clark's cock. "You're going to feel so good..."

That was nearly enough to set Clark off completely apart from a sharp growl in his ear of, "No Clark..." which brought him to his senses.

"Ease in to him, slowly..." Bruce murmured. Clark was large enough that there would have to be adjustment. "Remember, you move when I move, you hold when I hold... understand?"

"Y... yes.." There was a huff of a laugh. "Is he always like this?"

"Y... yeah." Lex laughed a little, too, and drew his slicked fingers away from Clark's cock, ready to move however would work best. He couldn't really see Bruce anymore., but he could hear him.

"Lex, I believe you can help support me against Clark with your legs," Bruce instructed in the darkness. "Tonight I'm going to have you both."

He could imagine the smirk with those words.

"I think you already have," Lex murmured, shifting his legs around Clark -- which coincidentally left him wide open for Clark.

It was a position that Clark could not resist as he pressed into Lex's body with a slow steady pressure. "God, you're beautiful..." He was going to bury himself in the other man just as he could feel Bruce deep in him.

"So, I should... wrap my legs around you both?" Lex asked breathlessly, waiting.

"Both." Bruce agreed as they pushed in close. It would give him something to brace against and move with.

"Lex... oh, god Lex you feel..." As good as he had that first night. Better for the slow work up, better for that indefinable spice of a third person. Clark moaned a little burying himself deep.

Slow pressure, but to Lex it felt like one minute Clark had been teasing him, the next, balls deep in him and heavy atop him. That was perfect, and his legs stretched agilely to do what Bruce wanted. It tipped his hips up, so Clark's dick felt like it was sliding in even deeper, thick and exactly where he needed it. "Oh, god. Oh, fuck me, that's good. So thick..."

"Remember Clark... move as I move.." Bruce instructed, relying on Clark's strength to keep the weight from him.

And he did. It was a strange feeling. The moves were familiar, the sensation different. The patterns were skillful and familiar, pressing deep and holding and then moving some more, twisting just a little and then a small movement before an unexpected swoop of penetration.

It felt like Bruce on one level but different on another.

Softer in a way, even if it was the same old way that Bruce had used to keep him off balance for years. Different, maybe, because he knew it was Bruce fucking Clark fucking him. And while it was a game, it wasn't one that Lex would consider dangerous on anything except his ass, which was a bundle of sensitive nerves.

Clark's mouth came seeking his, almost as desperate as he was for more, even as another hand slipped around Clark's body to stroke on Lex's cock. "So beautiful Lex," Clark kissed and murmured to him. "So.. much. Love you... love you.."

Bruce tended not to lose coherency in the same soft way that Clark obviously did.

And Lex was almost as bad. He could imagine Bruce tsking about them later -- which would make it fair game for Clark and Lex to plan 'revenge'. "Both. Love you, oh, fuck, just there, there, god..." _There_ was his prostate, and it felt like Clark had just jerked against it two or three times in a row.

"Keep that angle Clark..." Bruce was kissing Clark's neck and then the movements became stronger deeper and less restrained. 

"Please!" Clark again as he thrust deeper. "Please..."

Please, please fuck. Lex hardly groaned that before he was kissing Clark again, sucking at his mouth and tongue like it was a lifeline while he took the steady thrusts, the feel of the hand between their bodies stroking him off. Almost there. He was almost there, and hadn't they just started fucking?

Bruce wasn't that forgiving though. They were going to fuck to his pace and he used his vantage point to make sure that happened. The feel of a near orgasm for Lex was tugged back with a squeeze in the right place. Clark's plea's, made desperately into Lex's mouth and skin were reined in until it was impossible to tell how long they had been hovering around the edge of climax, the plateau of need getting higher and more desperate. Right up to the point where Lex could feel Bruce straining against his encircling legs and pushing hard into Clark moments before that unrestrained movement flowed through to them.

It was like the kinetic ball toy that Bruce had on his office desk. One motion that jolted through Clark and came out in Lex, a snap like an electrical current that pitched them all off of the cusp. It was just that little motion he'd needed to get over the edge, that ended up being a hard jerk of a thrust that sent Lex spinning over it. He groaned against Clark, legs tightening like his ass and stomach muscles.

The cascade effect rippled through them all. The tightening of his legs thrust Bruce deep into Clark, Clark jolted deep into him and pushed hard and fast, unrestrained by either of them until they all came in a dizzying succession of orgasm, warmth spilling in and around all of them even as Clark tested the sound proofing with a yell of need and ecstasy and Bruce with a throaty gasp

They didn't stop moving, either. When there was two people, it was easy to go mostly still, to gasp a little then bask in it. But with three, Lex could almost feel Bruce breathing against Clark breathing against him. Everything seemed to echo, even when he pulled at Clark loosely, limply, to lay atop him.

Clark nuzzled like he had that first night together, reaching for the comfort that came after sex with almost as much need as he had the act itself. Effortlessly, Lex was now the one giving comfort and tacit approval from the way he settled on to him. It was all the more incredible now he knew exactly what Clark was actually capable of doing, that he needed him with such soft and quiet desperation.

"I think... I think that went well." Bruce said eventually as their breathing calmed to something manageable.

"Do you need..?"

"I can manage."

There was a slight grunt from Clark as Bruce slid off to one side. On the other side of Lex, putting him in the middle. "Mm. Did you enjoy your surprise, Lex?"

"That was a..." Lex shifted, fingers curling into Clark's hair even as he turned his head to kiss Bruce. "Wonderful, unexpected surprise."

"I was right about Clark, wasn't I?"

"What about me?" Clark murmured from Lex's chest where he was now resting.

"Nothing," Lex murmured, all feigned innocence that he knew he could get away with because Clark felt good plastered to his front.

"Don't believe you..." Clark mumbled, not moving.

"Just the fact you didn't balk once at obeying what I was asking you to do," Bruce enlightened him. "That makes you interesting... considering."

"Considering? Why would I?. You said Lex would really like it, so..."

Bruce chuckled into Lex's ear. "Think of the fun we'll have with him."

"Mmm." Lex smiled to himself while he slipped his other arm beneath Bruce's shoulders. "Thinking of the fun I'm already having. This is perfect."

"Practice makes perfect," Bruce replied and looked over at Clark as he arranged his legs comfortably. "Cuddler hmm?"

"Yeah. It's nice." Lex exhaled slowly, holding onto both of them as tightly as he dared. He was going to make it work. He'd go out on a limb, do whatever he had to, but he was going to _make_ it, what was going on just then, work.

There was a comfortable silence for a while before Bruce murmured. "I owe him. For saving you. For saving us..."

"Hear that, Clark?" Lex whispered.

"Yes." There was the curve of a smile against his chest. "I heard."

"Good." Lex stretched a little, sore and tired but... happy. Clark was safe, and he had his abilities back. He'd even sleep-saved Lex. And Bruce, well, Bruce was making leaps in his willingness to get along.

Life was great.

* * *

If superheroes could have a routine, they developed one. For Clark, a commute from Metropolis was not more than a few seconds and often as not he darted over to Gotham to be with them whenever he could. Reporters' shifts were almost as erratic as billionaire's. When you could move as fast as Clark, it was amazing how you could make the most of things. The three of them managed to find time together, and a lot more on weekends which would disappear in comfortable hazes of pleasure.

Not everything was fixed by their union, however. Superman still had issues with acceptance even after what had happened to him, and though he didn't say anything, it obviously hurt. Lex still had issues with being The Batman, though Clark's resurrection helped.

And Bruce... Bruce still had issues more than anyone. The black depressions did not magically vanish for all his willingness to meet Lex halfway and not to drive him away. Instead, he would retreat and hide himself away as if somehow the depression would be contagious.

So when Alfred told him that 'Master Bruce' had retreated to the library when Lex had signaled that he was coming in, Lex knew what was going on. He'd promised himself that he wouldn't let Bruce lock himself away or push anymore, so once Alfred had checked him for wounds and Lex had tossed on a quick change of clothes, it was obvious what he had to do.

Talking with Bruce sometimes was like steeling yourself before climbing out of the foxhole to rush at the enemy. It took a lot of courage to do it when Lex knew that he could be shot down in seconds, minutes or hours.

Bruce was staring moodily into the fire, nursing what appeared to be the remnants of a large bottle of a fine cognac in the silence. He seemed oblivious to Lex's entry to start with, and the depression was palpable in the room.

Lex wanted to put his hands in his pockets, but pajamas didn't have pockets, so he ended up putting a hand on the chair that he walked past. "Bruce?"

Bruce looked up slowly. "A good evening, I trust?" he asked politely. "If you're looking for Clark I believe there's some disaster in Canada that's commanding his attention. I'm sure it won't take him long."

"I'm looking for you, actually." A glance to the bar, then Lex walked over to pour himself a glass of what Bruce was having.

"Oh?" Bruce queried. "Why? With Nighthawk out for repairs I wouldn't have thought you needed to speak to me."

"Why wouldn't I want to talk to you?" Bruce sounded more than a little drunk, which could prove useful to drawing some things out of him. Lex took a sip of the cognac, then moved to sit down beside Bruce on the sofa. At some point, Bruce had gotten himself out of his chair, which was good.

"Why would you?" Bruce murmured. "Why indeed, when you have better options?"

"Better options? I don't think I'm following you, Bruce." He followed all right, but it was best to hear it from Bruce's own mouth before he tried to comfort his brother-lover.

"A god walks among us..." Bruce quoted swirling the cognac in his glass. "Walk being the operative word there. I don't want pity, and that's all I am compared to him isn't it? Pitiful. The cripple."

"You're a god of a different type," Lex murmured as he leaned against Bruce subtly. "It doesn't matter to me that you can't walk. You're still brilliant. You can still hold your own in a fight. You're an impressive man, Bruce."

"Flattery, Lex. Flattery." Bruce murmured. "I don't see the logic. I don't see the logic that you can say this and mean it when you have someone beyond human."

"Since when do I adhere to logic?" Lex moved his free hand to grasp at one of Bruce's. "You're all of these amazing things that Clark isn't. You... you're not in competition with each other."

"I am in competition with myself." Bruce took a gulp of the cognac. "I am a shadow, a darkness in your happiness, Lex. I swore I wouldn't do this. Not again."

"Wouldn't do what, Bruce? Drink yourself silly without me?"

"That I wouldn't blight your life with my problems. Be selfish but... that's in my nature." Bruce looked at him. "And not in Clark's."

"Blight my life with your problems, Bruce," Lex countered as he squeezed the back of Bruce's hand. "I tell you mine. If you'd just share..."

"Lex, I thought what I was doing was the best thing for your sake. As time goes on, I'm not convinced that I wasn't correct. I'm not a healthy influence... " Bruce looked at his glass again. "And never before has it been more apparent than when I see the man you do deserve. Rarely does a legend surpass expectations, but Clark is every clich of movie love made flesh. I... I am not. He understands and comforts where I get angry and challenge. He protects you when I would send you into danger. He gives way to you and I order you around. Is this love? Or am I too twisted to ever know it?"

Lex took a deep sip, and then leaned forwards to set his half empty glass down before he turned his body towards Bruce, pulling the other man's legs into his lap. "I know I love you, Bruce. You want to know why? You made me push my limits when I didn't want to. You gave me a constructive action to take for every destructive one I wanted to try. It's been a rough couple of years, Bruce, but what's a couple of years compared to decades? Since we were six."

"Sometimes I feel like I robbed you of choices." He gripped the stem of his class too tightly. "You know the worst of it? You want proof?"

"Is it that the decanter's mostly empty now?" Lex pulled at Bruce until he had the other man entirely in his lap, against him.

"What you went through, what Clark went through, was my fault," Bruce muttered. "My fault not just because of high and lofty ideals I professed, but because a part of me wanted to believe that undergoing the interface surgery might cure me. I knew it was a lie. I always knew that, but still... I let you get shot, I gave Clark to the Kryptonite, and the whole damn world to the 'Swords of the Angels' for my own selfish wants! Now tell me, Lex, tell me, is that someone you can love? Or even forgive?"

He had to remember to separate reality from guilt. Lex knew how guilt spoke, the odd visceral urge to blame himself for their parent's deaths, for... so many things. "Bruce... It's not like that. You couldn't have known it would get that far."

"You give me too much credit. Somewhere, I wanted it. Somewhere, I was willing to throw you to the wolves for a hint of a lie. Why else would I have sat there knowing you were in pain?" Bruce hurled the glass at the fire making it flare brightly from the volatilized dregs of expensive cognac. "Endangered the world, put Clark through hell, and thought that was acceptable. Is that the act of a 'god among men'?"

Alfred would throw a tiny fit if that was one of the good glasses. "Very possibly. You slipped up -- people do it. _I_ do it. Clark does it."

"Not like this," Bruce seemed to lose some of his edge then and became weary. "Lex, you shouldn't have asked. You... don't need this. Any of this. Move to Metropolis, be with Clark. I can't guarantee there might not be another time when I play a jealous god, and do this again because... it wasn't a mistake. Every decision I made was logical, rational and balanced with a logic that so neatly fitted my ends."

"You're trying to push me away," Lex scolded quietly, leaning in to press his cheek against Bruce's. "I'm not going to let you. We all have our issues."

"You didn't ask to have a cripple, both physically and emotionally as part of your burden in life," Bruce replied nevertheless leaning in to him.

"You say that like I don't have an array of weird emotional problems." Now that they were settled together, it was easier for Lex to concentrate. "I didn't _ask_ for you to be crippled, but I'm not going to let you go because it happened. No matter how hard you try, all right?"

"You are... too damn reasonable," Bruce replied. "And Clark is... Clark." He closed his eyes a moment. "Apart, we're dysfunctional, together we make a balanced psychological construct. Me, the id and all its archetypes. Darkness, wants, vengeance, survival no matter what. Secretive and outside of the acceptable. Clark the... Superego. Hah." That afforded him a short bark of amusement. "The pure, the higher self. The embodiment of conscience, ideals and altruism and you... the Ego. The one who balances us both. Who holds us together and lets us be real. Without you, I wouldn't survive, I would destroy myself with vengeance and extremism. And Clark would do the same with his sacrifices, and altruism. God, I need you. "

He really was very drunk.

"I'm not going anywhere," Lex promised him, shifting his loose grasp to a tighter one. He could almost believe that, except that Bruce was so rational, so logical. "Except I don't rely on reason the way the 'Ego' should -- you do, Bruce. I follow what my emotions tell me to."

"Ego balances emotion and reason," Bruce replied. "Wants, needs and the way to get it. Fuck, why am I even arguing this? It's just a stupid thing, cognac induced idiocy. It's just hard. Being Batman should be the hardest thing I ever had to do, but sitting and waiting is harder." He pinched the bridge of his nose a moment. "I owe Alfred so many apologies for that."

"For what?"

"When we thought it was nothing to come home and find him waiting," Bruce closed his eyes. "Joking about how he's been dusting, making himself useful." He shook his head. "I shouldn't drink the cognac. It makes me maudlin."

"It's interesting to watch." Lex pressed close again, sighing against Bruce. "I know it's hard to wait. Being stuck and wondering if you'd come back in one piece -- I did it enough times when I was hurt to know. and... I don't know how Alfred has done it for so long. Or how you handle it."

Bruce spread his hand. "Does it look like I am?" he asked rhetorically. "I don't handle it. But there's nothing that will help, so I should cease my pathetic indulgence in self pity, which, incidentally, you were never meant to see."

"I know. I was supposed to go to bed and wait for you to skulk in." Lex kissed Bruce's temple, letting his lips linger against familiar skin. "Sorry for straying from the master plan."

"I never could get you not to improvise," Bruce replied. "Take me to bed, Lex, take me and just... do what you want. Or plot with me our continuing mission to corrupt Clark. Something. Anything but this. I loathe self-pity."

"You don't want to talk anymore? I want to try to help you, Bruce. I want you to be happy..." Lex didn't move, still murmuring against Bruce's temple. "If I could help you walk..."

"I know Lex." There was a long pause and then a barely audible sigh. "I'm not a man to be content with things as they are. It will pass. Until then, perhaps I can be cured with distraction."

"It's six am. And we do have to make a show at the building today..." Lex shifted, arms tightening around Bruce.

"We can be late," Bruce affirmed. "I'll have a convincing hangover."

"Mmhm. I bet you will, since that was full earlier. C'mon... Hold on and I'll carry you."

"A fringe benefit," Bruce agreed. Truth be told he probably wouldn't be fit for anything save sleeping. But a man could dream.

"Getting carried?" Lex got to his feet a bit shakily, and grinned to himself. "Sure, I guess so."

"Mmm. Stagger us to bed, my dear ego, your id is out of control and possibly drunk," Bruce replied with a hint of a slur in his voice.

It was easy for Lex to do, once he was on his feet and moving. Bruce's wheelchair could stay there for the moment -- Lex would fetch it when he woke up in a few hours. "Maybe I should encourage my Id."

"Your Id needs no encouragement," Bruce replied. ""Mm."

"Mm?" He jostled Bruce a little carrying him up the stairs, but Bruce was used to that, too.

"You smell good. Remember our first time? You smelt of liniment then too."

Lex's lips twitched at the memory. "I'd pulled my shoulder in fencing. I remember it very well. I smelled like liniment because you'd just put it on me."

"My hands wandered a little. And just as I was going to ask you... you pounced on me," Bruce smiled. "Another Master plan wrecked."

"All that damn improvising that I do." Lex glanced down to the smile on Bruce's face when he reached the top step. "Ah, to be young and hormonal again..."

"I don't need to be young to be hormonal, not with you around," Bruce replied. "It would have been very embarrassing if you had rejected my advances."

"What would've? Growing up together like we did? Probably." Lex walked the familiar halls of the Wayne family home that was his home, too.

"You did feel you had a choice right?" Bruce had never asked before and under ordinary circumstances wouldn't dream of showing that sort of indecision.

"When I fell head over heels for you? Of course I did. Don't you remember how everyone used to call me your puppy dog? It was the best choice I ever made, falling hopelessly for you." He'd certain led an exciting existence because of it.

"Pure bred Red Setter, Victoria used to call you," Bruce said with a smile. "I used to say that at least you weren't a bitch."

"She was just jealous of my hair," Lex laughed. He shouldered open the bedroom door, backing into it. "Isn't she married to a dentist now?"

"Dentist to the stars please," Bruce said in mock seriousness. "Which always made me want to quip about astronomy."

"Just how _do_ you scale an asteroid's teeth?" Lex turned around as they neared the bed, depositing Bruce gently on the mattress.

Bruce actually chuckled at that. "Mm, exactly my question. Come to bed, Lex. Clark will be back soon."

"Can I pass out watching you two kiss?" Lex asked half-hopefully as he took off his pajama top.

"If you want," Bruce lay back. "You're tired and I'm being demanding. I apologize."

"Don't apologize." Lex dropped his shirt to the floor, and stretched before he shimmied out of his pajama bottoms. Sometimes, he wondered why he had them at all, other than for sparing Alfred's sensibilities. "I'm too wound up to sleep."

Bruce pulled off his own top. "Then I've talked, so feel free to get it off your chest."

"There isn't anything to get off my chest. I just had a close scrape and an argument with Commissioner Gordon. Adrenaline gets the body going." He moved to lay down beside Bruce on the bed, pulling the sheets back and out from under Bruce.

"A close scrape?" Bruce turned to look at him. "How close?"

"I got rolled over the hood of a moving car. The usual. I caught the guy, though -- how was I supposed to know the bastard was the new chief's son?"

"No one is above Justice. The Law is a different matter, but Justice will out in the end." His arms wrapped around Lex, holding him tight. "Sometimes it needs a Dark Knight to champion its cause."

There was a sound at the door and Clark padded in silently.

Not silently enough that he wasn't noticed at all, though, and Lex lifted his head a little. "Clark, going to join us?"

Clark just nodded and stripped naked in front of them both. "For a few hours." He looked tense right up to the point when he got into bed and wriggled down next to them. Then he exhaled and relaxed.

"We were just discussing long nights," Lex broached as he shifted to loose Bruce just a little, just so they could all touch and let Clark in. "How was yours?"

"Not so good," Clark replied. "Avalanche. I saved the people but... the town is wrecked."

"That's... not the worst outcome," Lex said optimistically.

"It's not the best," Clark replied leaning into him. "Missed you guys."

Lex sighed, and hugged onto them both in idle delight. "Missed you, too. So did Bruce."

"I didn't miss the cognac, though, or my appointment with self-pity," Bruce added. "Clark, Lex wants to pass out watching us kiss. I think he deserves it for putting up with the pair of us..."

"Sure." Clark glanced at Lex and back to Bruce. "Over him?"

"Ringside view," Bruce agreed.

"'Putting up' with you two is the best thing I've ever done," Lex smiled. He was bone tired, and bruised, and exhausted from having to argue things out with the commissioner again, so it was really for the best that they'd agreed to doing that. Just because he was out of commission didn't mean that things shouldn't go on.

It was good to be able to close his eyes to the sight and sound of his two lovers kissing languidly across his abdomen. It was a pleasant image to carry with him into a much needed sleep.

* * *

Justice was taking a night off. Justice needed a night off, or Justice was going to have a fucking nervous breakdown. He didn't know why he hadn't just snapped Joker's neck. It would've been so easy, so fucking good for the world, but...

But. He hadn't. Joker was back in Arkham, and the DA was pressing for the Death penalty this time, mental incompetence or not. And Lex... didn't, couldn't think about it just then. It had been haunting him for three days, so when Bruce had heavily suggested that he take a night, it hadn't taken much work to get Lex to agree.

After all, he had Clark tied naked to their bed. That was worth the break to have another part of the wheel of justice at his and Bruce's questionable mercy.

"He looks good like this," Bruce commented admiring their handiwork. "Clark, try not to break loose will you? Lex needs some serious play time and... I wasn't as receptive to being on the receiving end. I get to teach him all the fun I was having."

Lex's mouth twitched darkly as he nipped at Clark's collarbone. "I think you'll enjoy this."

"If you don't want me to break anything then you should just put that bit of Kryptonite on the side," Clark replied shivering a little. "Then I will be stuck. And I have no doubt I'll enjoy it. You too are a little bit too expert at tying to be amateurs."

Bruce smiled a little at Lex. "Somehow I don't think we qualify as amateurs in this particular area. What do you think? A little touch of the green stuff?"

Lex was wary of that idea, but... "If you're sure." The fact that Clark had _brought_ it implied quite a lot about how much he trusted them.

"The full experience, like Bruce said," Clark replied with a grin totally at odds with his spread-eagled position. "You liked it right?"

"Loved it," Lex confirmed slyly. He had to lean away for a moment to open the little lead box on the side table, turning it towards Clark while waiting for some signal. When Clark nodded that it was enough, he moved back onto the mattress, brushing against Bruce sensually as he went.

"A lean and hungry Lex," Bruce murmured. "So, Master Lex, I have procured for you this fine specimen of an innocent..." He ignored Clark's snort. "How shall we treat with him?"

"Have you ever noticed Bruce's tendency to go literary when he's plotting something sexually devious?" Clark said from the bed.

"Shhh." Lex slapped the side of Clark's hip, mostly playful. "I told you about Alfred's porn stash, and you didn't believe me. It's very British. Now, Bruce... I was thinking that a gag is in order to start."

"A gag?" Clark interrupted.

"Hmm, a wise choice. He seems very fond of interrupting us when we're contemplating how best to entertain ourselves," Bruce agreed. He leaned over and lifted a box from the floor. "Now let's see. What type would you like? Would you like any of these other things? Oh, you remember this one?" He dangled something made of leather and metal. "Didn't you nearly pass out you came so hard?"

"Is that the cockring? God." Lex glanced over at Clark, and wiggled his eyebrows suggestively. "He'll need a ball gag if we're going to use that on him."

"You two are winding me up, aren't you?" Clark asked as he flushed with color. "You're deliberately doing this to... oh..."

Bruce was dangling a ball gag from out of the box.

"Is it too late to have second thoughts?" Clark asked.

"Much, much too late," Bruce replied in his deepest most sexually raw tone.

"You can have second thoughts, but you can't act on them." Once he'd taken the gag from Bruce's hands, Lex crawled up over Clark's body to sit on his chest and put the gag in place. "It's only a shame that it'll take his mouth out of commission."

"You can always take it out later," Bruce commented from behind him as he rummaged in the box and got out a few other things. "By then he'll be incapable of speech anyway."

"This is a point." Lex grinned wickedly as he put the gag against Clark's mouth. "Open."

"One kiss before I go to my silent doom?" Clark pleaded hopefully, looking up at Lex even as Bruce chuckled behind them.

"Just one." Lex assented to that, leaning down to take Clark's mouth in his.

Bruce made a sound of disapproval. "You give in to him so easily," he teased. "It's not his place to make demands."

Lex sucked gently at the bottom of Clark' s lip, then lifted his head. "I'm bad at being domineering. Now open your mouth, Clark."

Clark did so, allowing Lex to put in the gag, pulling just a little at his restraints as he did so.

"Well now, seems that's enough to get him to half mast just there," Bruce commented from behind them. "Perhaps you have just a different style, Lex."

He tightened the gag gently, smiling down at Clark as he did so. "Yeah. I think he likes this. Imagine that."

"Mr. 'I am responsible for everything that goes wrong in the world' getting off on having that taken away from him even just for a little while?" Bruce answered rhetorically. "Definitely a shocker. Are you smiling at him? Because his temperature is rising again."

"Like a rocket," Lex murmured as he shifted on Clark's chest before he took his time scooting down over Clark's stomach, then over his hard cock, to settle on his thighs. "Hand me that cockring?"

Bruce passed it over, leaning to plant kisses on Lex's neck as Lex sat there. "You are... very sexy when you're tying up a superhero, you know that?"

"You're sexy all the time." Lex slipped hands around the base of Clark's dick, squeezing to deflate him a little while he turned into Bruce's kissing.

It was easy to get distracted by one of Bruce's kisses, especially when he was deliberately making a show of it for their third lover. Passionate, deep kisses developed, making it very hard to keep Clark from reacting even though Lex was squeezing him.

"Oh yeah..." Lex slipped one arm around Bruce's waist, holding him close when he finally broke the kisses to slip the cockring over Clark's dick.

"Tight," Bruce commented. "He really does look good like that..." He glanced over Clark's body. "Where to begin, where to begin? Or shall we just leave him there and fuck in front of him?"

Lex's eyes drifted to Clark's body, watching for what got the most reaction. "I'm not sure. I think we can kiss a little..."

"Kissing is always good," Bruce was practically purring at him then. "We have toys we can play with. Some of your favorites. " A kiss, slow and sweet. "Just the thought of what we could do will get him off," Bruce murmured in Lex's ear. "Our Clark has a hair trigger for this... look at him. Quivering already."

"Tense," Lex whispered. "Why don't we put some of those toys to use, then? The one with the ball bearings?"

"Mmm... after a couple more kisses," Bruce murmured again, just as eager in another way as he took those kisses. "Chose your weapon."

"The green one."

"I have fond memories of this," Bruce passed it over. "You and I in the downstairs guest suite we converted into a... dungeon for the weekend at Halloween. Remember that?"

"Was that before or after the hostage crisis?" Lex took one last kiss from Bruce before he pulled gently away to lean down and kiss Clark's hip. "Do you see this, Clark?" He held it aloft as he looked at Clark

Clark's eyes widened a moment and then he nodded making a faint sound. "Mmm."

"After," Bruce murmured twisting to look at both Clark and Lex.

"I should've remembered," Lex murmured, a smile touching his lips as he laid its tip against Clark's hip.

Clark twitched at that, a muffled yelp barely audible behind the gag. 

"I'll take the red one. Mind if I join you?" Bruce asked politely.

"The more the merrier," Lex said already involved in trailing the toy he had over Clarks responsive skin.

Bruce smirked a little and then the pair of them set to work to introduce Clark to the joys of being at their mercy. He really didn't stand a chance, not against both of them.

They worked in smooth coordination, and it was maybe the first time that Clark understood what Lex said when he inferred that he and Bruce 'came as a set'. A matched pair -- it worked, they worked, smoothly even with the playful bickering. Lex seemed to know just when Bruce wanted to move with or without his help.

But they both knew how to bring Clark to his 'knees', at the mercy of their toys.

Coming once wasn't anywhere near enough for them; Clark was teased, kissed and stimulated into coming multiple times at their combined mercy. Bruce had managed to suck him off even around the cockring much to all of their amazement.

Unbeknownst to all of them, the Kryptonite that was making Clark's genuine cooperation possible was issuing low levels of active radiation. Lex, though he didn't realize it, was functioning at peak healing efficiency, and Bruce...

What was happening to Bruce was another matter.

At the point where it happened, Clark's gag had been replaced with Lex's mouth, and Bruce was entertaining himself down near Clark's groin.

And mid-plundering kiss Clark stiffened against his mouth in apparent pain, crying out into Lex's mouth as screwed his eyes just and jerked away. 

Lex jerked back a little, looking at Clark's face alarmed by the sudden change. Clark hadn't just been tolerating what they had been doing, but reveling in it. "What don't you like?" There was a faint shaking, but it built to a crescendo quickly; a twist, and Lex could see his brother, shuddering and... Seizing?

Oh god. Lex pulled away from Clark, moving down to try to help Bruce who had obviously bitten into Clark's skin perilously near to his cock.

"What's happening? What..." Clark was still grimacing, and a faint trickle of blood could be seen running down near Bruce's head.

Bruce was arching, crying out, his entire body shaking but seemingly conscious for all his body was betraying him. 

"Bruce..." Lex clutched at Bruce's shoulders, trying to hold him still, to keep him from jerking and falling off the bed.

"H...hurts..." Bruce managed, shaking uncontrollably. "My back... my legs... hurts...."

Clark struggled in earnest this time, realizing something was very wrong. "Lex, Lex! Shield the damn Kryptonite!" At least he would be able to help then. Somehow. Or see what was happening.

"Your legs hurt? Bruce, you haven't felt your legs in years..." Bruce gripped at him, trying to keep Bruce still while he dragged him up with him, further onto the bed until he was far enough to smack the lead box closed.

The moment it shut Clark's strength returned and he ripped himself free even as Bruce tried to writhe in Lex's arms. "Turn him over; I need to look at his back. Really look at it," Clark said, worried, even though the shaking was subsiding. "Easy now."

Lex turned him not onto his back but onto his side -- that was what was safest to do with someone who was having a seizure. "Okay... Bruce? Stay with us..."

"Legs... fire..." Bruce mumbled, gripping and clinging desperately on to Lex.

Clark was squinting at his back, burst of nerve activity flaring in his x-ray and microscopic vision all around the interlock points embedded in Bruce's spine from the operation for Ra's al Ghul's biointerface.. "Something's set off the interface spots. All of them. They're... I can see new nerve bundles threading past the severed ones.. More nerves... The old ones haven't repaired, he has new ones. They weren't like that before..."

"How...?" Lex stared down at his brother in wonder, wishing he could see what Clark saw.

"I don't know," Clark said bemused, furrowing his brow in concentration. "They somehow grafted or grew on additional nerves for the bio interface way back then, and maybe they've been growing since. But nerve cells don't regrow, not like that. Even the AI wasn't sure what to do, although its experience with human physiology was limited."

Bruce had settled, only twitching now and then. "World's biggest case of... pins and needles."

"Do you want me to call for Alfred?" Lex was staring down at Bruce in awe, having to concentrate to breath. Pins and needles. Bruce could _feel_ , even if it was just pain down there. All thoughts of the sex they'd been having with Clark were _gone_ in favor of the wonder that this change was.

"I'm okay, I'm okay..." Bruce was breathing hard. "Fuck, fuck... cramps... okay... Touch... touch me there. I need to know. I need to know if this is real."

Fingers slipped down to Bruce's leg, stroking his thigh. "Can you feel that? Clark, help me here..."

"I can feel it," Bruce said after a pause. "I don't damn well believe it. Talia didn't lie..."

Clark frowned. "But why now? Is it complete or just partial... or?"

Lex pulled at Bruce, an old habit that was going to have trouble dying, and nodded his head to Clark. "Touch him, further down."

Clark leaned using his long reach to tickle at Bruce's toes. There was no apparent reaction, but Bruce frowned a little. "It's... faint but I can feel it. I can feel some of it!"

"That... that's fantastic, Bruce. We have to... god, get you dressed, down to the cave and checked out there. This is..." A miracle, but he didn't want to say, exactly. He didn't want Bruce to argue over the viability of miracles.

"I need to... Just let me see if I can," Bruce asked pushing himself up. "I have to see if I can... stand. Step. Now."

"Bruce..." Clark glanced at Lex not sure if they should be moving him.

"Bruce, you just had a seizure," Lex countered as he clasped onto Bruce.

"I. Have. To. Know." Bruce said as he sat up. "I don't expect everything, but I need to know if I have something. If there's something, I can find a way."

Sometimes, even pinning Bruce still didn't matter when it came to stopping him from doing something. "Just... Let me stand up first. So I can catch you if..." He started to stand up even as he said it.

Clark joined him even as Bruce slid to the edge of the bed and took a deep breath. Feet touched floor and for the first time in three years felt something. Not full sensation but a world more than the deadness from before. Carefully, very carefully he pushed up and felt pain in his back down his legs. Even that was welcome, it was a feeling.

For a brief moment he stood and he moved as if to step and his leg moved with him.

And then he crumpled abruptly as the muscles spasmed all at once.

Lex was standing in front of him, and lunged to catch Bruce under the arms. "It's okay, Bruce. People need physical therapy after this long, so I'm sure it's normal."

There was a shaking against him, and Clark helped move Bruce back to the bed worried that it was something going wrong. Instead it was something more unusual and something he had never seen before, for all he had known them for some time.

Bruce was laughing. Really laughing. Not the half smile, or the tone of amusement. Not the light chuckle or forced polite laugh. The real thing.

"Bruce..." Lex tilted his head, starting to laugh as he looked down at his sprawled out brother. "God. It's going to be okay. Really okay..."

There was light back in Bruce's eyes. The lighter side of him that had survived the killing of both their parents because Lex had been there, but had been extinguished by his own accident. "I'll walk again... I'll fucking run and do everything again, even if it takes years. I can wait. Working hard is nothing" Bruce managed in between laughter. "But... if I find out this happened because of the miracle properties of Superman's semen..."

He laughed again, helplessly.

It was contagious. Lex's lips twitched as he looked at where Clark was kneeling on the bed. "It's possible, you know. Magical healing semen... Heh heh."

"You're kidding, right?" Clark looked as if he didn't know whether to take them seriously or to start laughing. He couldn't help grinning. "You think you're mocking me, but I'll have you know my blood cured some pretty weird things. But my..."

He couldn't even say the word without getting embarrassed. He glanced down at his still enmeshed cock. "Um."

"We may need regular samples," Bruce said and practically snorted with laughter.

"We could bottle it," Lex snickered as he laid down beside Bruce -- there was more pure relief in his eyes than laughter, and his grin felt like it was going to crack his face.

"I'm not even going to try and say anything to that," Clark replied, smiling. "You damn well worried me. And bit me."

Bruce patted at him absently. "Now the Kryptonite is shielded and not active you're all healed up. I'm..."

He frowned a moment. "Kryptonite. We've never done it with Kryptonite present before."

"And Bruce is all healed up. Or something like." Lex closed his eyes for a moment as intuition left a twinge on the inside of his mind. "Coincidence?"

Clark shook his head. "I doubt it. I mean, we never did find out what Talia Head did to make the nerve cells generate. And it's true what I told you, Lex -- it's such an active substance, and more so around me that even a tiny amount can create fantastic changes. I don't think it's anything to do with me at all, though usually it just being there isn't enough."

Although it did radiate around him much more strongly than normal. Perhaps that was the critical factor.

"Hmm." Bruce replied. "Well, I guess we clean up, tell Alfred and then Lex can play doctor."

"... doctor, or 'doctor'?" Lex winked as he started to sit up. "Clark, where's your pants?"

"God alone knows," Clark replied smiling. "Someone else undressed me and tied me to the bed. Pants were not part of my attention. Um, could you help me with this? I don't want to break it." He gestured to the cockring. "That would seem a little unfair considering the hard work we put it through."

"No point in punishing the cockring," Lex murmured, as he leaned over Bruce's reclining body to pull the cockring off of Clark.

He was ambushed by Bruce just as he took it off of Clark, blind sided by a kiss from the other man that made Clark laugh as the dark haired man nigh on pounced Lex in his euphoric exuberance.

"God, I love you..." Lex laughed as he got an arm around Clark's waist, lips twitching when he kissed Bruce back. "Heh..."

"Postpone the appointment with the 'doctor'," Bruce murmured. "I've changed my mind. I have urgent unfinished business here." He twisted to kiss Lex again and brushed against his ear with his mouth.

"I love you."

The words were so soft that even at that distance it was hard for Lex to be sure he was really hearing them but Clark's expression was all the confirmation he needed.

Bruce never said that, not aloud. Not where fate would be tempted by the curse he felt his love to be, not unless he felt safe, and secure enough that the love could be protected somehow.

In the relative quiet of their room, safe in the familiar darkness. Lex pulled at Clark to bring him closer to them both, and settled partially over Bruce. "I think that's the real miracle..."

The curing of a crushed spine seemed a lesser cause or amazement than the fact of tangible evidence that somehow, after all these years, Bruce's wounded self had healed enough to be able to admit love was something real, and something he could express. Lex had never thought to see that again and in all their years together that moment had never come to fruition.

And he was sure that the catalyst for this particular miracle had not been a glowing rock or a recovery, but the fact that their unconventional triad worked and Clark balanced the pair of them and made them both feel, in ways they could not do for each other.

It would work, and now Lex understood in his heart that it would. They were a matched set, he and Bruce, two opposite ends of the spectrum that needed one more part to keep them from swinging each other in wild circles. Clark steadied them, and maybe, just maybe, they steadied Clark, too.

* * *

There were long nights, and then there were horrible nights. A long night meant it was a success, but draining, and horrible nights meant someone got away. Some sick fucker got away, or got locked up and you just knew that he'd get out through the court system. It was one of those nights, but it was easier knowing someone was watching over your shoulder.

Lex settled on the edge of the Police department's headquarters, watching as they emptied the squad car's contents to escort him inside. That man was going to walk, and he knew it.

"One day it will stick," the low voice spoke his thoughts next to him. "Those from tonight are safe."

Eyes glittered from behind the Batman mask, bright with the adrenaline from their endeavors.

"It's the third time," Lex muttered from behind his own mask. " _Three_ times, extortion, drug charges, abuse, and those fuckers in there can't make it _stick_..."

"Then eccentric billionaires should see about funding a decent forensic division for the police." Bruce saw a flicker of light on one of his sensors. "The cybernetic brace is showing only a couple of hours more charge. We better head back."

With that there was a flicker of movement just behind Lex.

Lex turned his head faintly. "Superman.... Good to see you. We were just going to clock out for the night."

Clark stood mid air with his arms crossed. "I heard tell that Gotham City had a certain 'silly, puffy little bird' back in residence." He was half smiling. "Imagine my surprise when I discover my informants weren't talking ornithology."

Lex stretched out of his crouched position, the brown-black cybernetic suit moving effortlessly when he did. He'd always preferred it to Bruce's suit, and the new version was better than ever, designed to work with his skills. "We haven't worked together before, Superman -- pleasure to meet you."

"Nighthawk, Superman, Superman, Nighthawk," Batman said dryly. "He shows promise."

Superman smiled. "High praise indeed, Batman."

"It is." Nighthawk laughed faintly, leaning over towards Superman to shake his hand, smiling beneath the mask. "Pleasure to meet you. Was it only bird watching that brought you into town?"

"The Flash and J'onn Jonnz put forward an idea of forming a loose association of our kind for protection of the world. Our cooperation has become more common of late. The White Martians for example," Superman replied formally, though he knew that they would discuss it much later in greater depth. "I was asked to present the idea to you and your... associate. Truthfully, I think you intimidate them, Batman."

Bruce gave a feral smile behind the mask. "Really? I wonder why?"

"The fact that they can only see your mouth," Nighthawk guessed, grinning. "I think we should meet and talk with them, but..."

"But?" Superman queried. "Is there an objection?"

He glanced over at Batman, then shook his head. "No. But, you should tell them that it's dependent on meeting them."

"I'll organize it," Superman nodded. "Thank you for your time, both of you. I'm sure we'll speak again soon."

His eyes gleamed blue as he smiled and blurred away.

"Time to go home," Batman murmured glancing at Lex.

"I bet he's beaten us there," Lex sighed as he stretched, and moved to jump off the back corner of the building.

"Do you doubt it?" Bruce replied. "At least he'll have everything ready when we get there." He jumped with Lex, the part of them tumbling effortlessly towards the location of the Batmobile waiting until they were secure inside . "The brace performed adequately. My use of the Chair will not be feigned tomorrow -- I'll need to rest the muscles again for patrol."

"You're still building up," Lex agreed as he settled into the front, ready and willing to drive them home at Mach speed.

"Four years and I'm still 'building up'." There was a hint of frustration there but none of the bitter rancor of before. Bruce had been right; he'd found a way to bypass the limitations the still developing healing had placed on him, and tap into the added bonuses the original surgery had given him. The cybernetic support Lex had designed was giving them a definite edge. 

It took every bit of Lex's self control to not turn around and smile at Bruce. Driving at those speeds took too much concentration to take his eyes off the road. "Four years ago, did you think even this would be possible? Every day is amazing, Bruce. Hell, you're starting to kick me in your sleep now."

"Who said I was asleep?" Bruce commented dryly. "It's true, I didn't believe it was possible. Or that we... Well, logic was very firmly against the possibility of success of all three of us. Together."

Lex's mouth twisted smugly. "Everyone trying hard to make it work, and not putting up with anyone's shit... makes a difference. I knew it could work."

"Know-it-all bastard," Bruce said comfortably. "Oh, no wait, that's me isn't it? According to Clark anyway. It's strange, I thought you were the one who took the most risks, but it's him. He makes my blood run cold sometimes. And you don't have to tell him that."

"I won't," Lex promised vaguely. "You're a know it all bastard of a different color than me." Clark was so self-sacrificing that Lex understood how Bruce was the selfish Id that helped keep Clark tethered down.

"And we're practicing that double tumble move again. It could have slipped at the wrong moment," Bruce murmured as the car sped in untracked and unseen to the entrance to the Batcave and automatically slowed, and the door opening.

"Master Bruce, Master Lex, how was your excursion?" Alfred asked courteously, even as Clark leaned on the panel beside him.

Lex popped the hatch open, and stretched as he stood up, pushing his mask back. "Couple of rough points, it looks like Bruce and I need to get into the gym to work on some of the old flips."

"Looked pretty smooth to me," Clark commented with a smile.

"That is because you've never studied. One day, Kent, I'm going to teach you the finer points of martial arts," Bruce replied. "The brace needs some fine tuning and so do I."

He pulled off his own mask. "We did have a visit from the most fashion challenged hero of them all..."

"Hey!" Clark protested as Alfred served coffee to them all. "Cultural heritage."

"Underwear on the outside," Lex said as he moved to take his uniform off. "I wish I'd seen that culture. Alfred, how did things look on your end?"

"The feedback looked good Master Lex. Master Bruce did not exceed the safety limits -- for once." Alfred looked at them all. "In all, a mission where I don't have to break out my home surgery kit is successful from my point of view."

"You say that now, but what if you get rusty," Lex laughed. He sat on the floor for a moment, taking off his boots while he looked over at Clark, over by the coffee, and Bruce sitting down.

"Then I'll consider it a skill worth losing through disuse," Alfred said. "Or alternatively I will wait until you visit the Kent farm again and Alexander sits on another farm implement."

Clark tried to hide a smile and coughed to clear his throat as he handed out the coffee.

Lex held one boot aloft, and mock-whipped it at Clark before he dropped it down. "Yeah, yeah. How was I supposed to know you had a hair-trigger milking machine?"

"What, you thought my lightning reflexes were inborn?" Clark commented. "Bruce, are you okay?" He moved to help him from the complex back brace. 

"I'm fine." He didn't refuse or reject the assistance just allowed Clark to run hand over him carefully.

Alfred cleared his throat. "As everyone is safely returned home, I will retire to bed. Master Clark, if you happen to raid the fridge in the middle of the night you will find I have stocked it with some sandwiches ready made for you all, if only to prevent there from being a mysterious emptiness in the morning when I am meant to be cooking breakfast."

"Or a small burnt out hole where the oven was." Lex stood up with the cup of coffee that Clark had given him, and walked over towards Bruce. There was something... warming about watching Clark and Bruce together. Lex's voyeuristic side peeking out, he guessed.

"Thanks, Alfred," Clark replied a little sheepishly.

Bruce caught Lex's eye a moment and smiled.

"Good night all. Make sure you get sufficient rest, all of you," Alfred instructed as he powered down the controls and headed for the exit. "And please remember to shut the door this time."

"Good night, Alfred. Sleep well -- we'll close the door." Lex gave a faint wave. "So, Bruce -- back sore?"

"Just a little," Bruce replied with a smirk. "Care to help me out? Or are you too busy watching tonight?"

"Watch, help, I'll do whatever I can." Lex reached a hand out to Bruce, smiling over at Clark. "I think I'll join in. We spent enough of tonight just watching things."

"We can talk about the other thing tomorrow," Clark murmured. "Metropolis was quiet tonight."

"So you found somewhere else to rescue." Bruce concluded as he moved to rest a little on them both. His recovery wasn't perfect but it was good enough.

Better than nothing. Anything, Lex knew, was better than nothing. His whole life had been like that, and 'better than nothing' could be really good on its own. His parents had died, but he had Bruce and Alfred, and then he'd had that accident at the plant, and Bruce had been there for him, and then Bruce had gone over that bridge...

And now Bruce could stand, walk, move. Every day he was faintly, fractionally better, something that amazed the odd 'normal' physician that Bruce had to see.

"Gotham was comparatively quiet," Lex half-laughed as he let Bruce rest on him.

"They heard Batman and NightHawk were a team again," Clark replied. "And good idea about the forensics department, Bruce."

"Naturally," Bruce replied with the hint of arrogance that was all Bruce. "All of my ideas are good ones. I allowed Lex to keep you after all."

"Which was a good idea," Lex chuckled, "but you know, we still haven't gotten a cat bed for you, Clark. So I guess you're sleeping with us again tonight."

"I'll sleep on your feet if you're not careful," Clark warned. "Anyway, you two use me as a portable heater. Remember when it snowed and you wouldn't let me out of bed?"

"It was a lot of snow," Bruce mused. "And don't try to tell me that you didn't enjoy it."

Lex looked over the top of Bruce's head as they escorted him up the stairs, one on either side of Bruce. "You did keep us warm. But on the up side, you had two handsome men sandwiching you between them in bed."

"Very literally," Clark agreed. "J'onn sends his regards by the way. He told me to tell you that the last time he was being you, Lex, Victoria Hardwick came onto him really strongly. The dentist is no more apparently."

"Great. I'll have to deal with that." Lex stroked fingers against Bruce's back. "I'm fairly sure I can repulse her just by being an asshole. I remember my dad did it when I was little. When a woman comes on to you, drool and react like one of those old cartoon wolves. Just act hideous. Even the money-grubbers can't take that for long."

"Perhaps you should just disgrace yourself with a young man in front of her," Bruce replied half lidding his eyes. "Mm. Some day we'll have to do it. Especially if you're going ahead with political aspirations at some point."

"Can I disgrace myself with one of you two in front of her?" Lex asked in playful hopefulness.

"I suggest Clark, if only to save him from the predatory claws of Lois Lane," Bruce looked at Clark who flushed a little. "You think I didn't know?"

"I... uh... she, well, you know Lois. She won't take no for an answer."

"Then would you like me to try and have her arrested for attempted rape?" Bruce suggested. "You are not hers."

"Wait, what's this? Why didn't I hear about this?" Lex wanted to jerk to a stop, but you didn't do that when you were almost to the top of stairs that tall.

"It's not as serious as all that. Lois got a bit drunk with Chloe, called me for a lift the other night and..." Clark shrugged. "I barely made it out with my virtue intact."

"Then that's what we'll do. Two dames with one kiss," Lex decided firmly. "I'm not going to let a woman prey on you just because you're too nice."

"They were just drunk."

He was interrupted by a snort from Bruce. "Not as drunk as all that."

"Lois doesn't really want me, she's obsessed with Superman," Clark replied a little uncomfortably as they reached their room.

"That's funny. I'm pretty obsessed with one guy named Clark Kent. Kent obsessions trump Superman obsessions," Lex noted sagely, keeping the door open.

"We're strong enough as a company to set trends rather than be brought down by them," Bruce murmured. "So yes, next function you're at and Clark is reporting, or you need a high profile date, Clark will have to dress up in his tux and be kissed in front of the world. They can't exactly shout about homosexuality undermining society, especially as at the moment, WayneLuthor Enterprises are holding a large proportion of it all up. You could be in the White House in ten years according to the Master Plan."

"Great, you can be First Lady then, Bruce." Clark grinned as they moved in and collapsed on the bed.

"Can't I have two?" Lex let them hit the bed, first, so he could peel off his bodysuit. "I need to take a shower. I'll be back."

"No, wait..." Bruce smiled. "Think we can fit all three of us in there? I need one too. Some of us sweat, you know, Clark."

"Clark sweats," Lex laughed. "Just... not much. Clark, haul Bruce out of the suit, while I get the water going."

"My pleasure," Clark replied moving to do that. He was happy to do it.

His relationship with Lex and Bruce wasn't perfect, and he didn't want it to be. The imperfections let him know that it was real. Bruce still had moments of insufferable superiority; Lex could be unmanageable and oblivious and yet...

It worked. He wasn't alone.

He wasn't alone, and they were there when it _really_ counted more than the superficial 'needs' that had always hung up his friends. They tried, and it was still working after four years. 

Longest relationship of his life, and it didn't show any signs of stopping.

It was hard to see which of them believed that they were luckier as Clark helped Bruce towards the shower.

Bruce was a very private person but there was something about Lex and Clark that cracked open his defensive shell. Four years down the line and his relationship with Lex was stronger than ever and with Clark... Clark was something he couldn't put a name to. He was different, but it was that difference that made him special. Originally he had accepted him because it had meant he wouldn't lose Lex, and he had known that Clark had known that and it had hurt the other man sometimes.

But over time the connection forged between them, a love and a different type of love than Lex had with Bruce. One day perhaps, Bruce would say the words to Clark as he had to Lex, but for now he found himself amazed and sometimes a little awed by Clark's ability to forgive that sort of slight, to be grateful for them both.

It was amazing for them both. Lex seemed to take it for granted that it worked smoothly, in that firmly optimistic way that he'd always dealt with relationships. Determined, but easy about it. They both knew that Lex was in the bathroom, running the water hot, adding something good smelling, to try to make it overall a good experience. 

"You take the front, I'll take the back," Bruce murmured as they entered. 

Clark nodded already focused on Lex. He couldn't be without Lex, and Bruce was more than just an extra to him. He loved them both and he just lit up when he saw Lex in particular. Just thinking about him made him smile.

"Any day that ends like this," Lex declared, reaching his arms wide to them both while he stood there naked, "is a good day."

Clark moved around to his front, and Bruce to his back, both smiling. "For us, yes, not for the criminals of the world," Clark replied.

Bruce kissed Lex on the back of the neck. "Thus spoke the superego..." he intoned.

"Ohhh, god, I'm not thinking about crime right now..." Lex wrapped arms around Clark, pressing back to Bruce's grasp.

All he was thinking about was that he had the best of both worlds. Nothing would ever take away the tragedy of what had happened to his parents or to Bruce's and none of them would ever 'fit in'. Lex's strength and realization had always been that if it was real, and there was love, then no one had to fit in. They would find their own balance, create a new and different shape of being.

A better shape of being for all three of them together.


End file.
